tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63953865972983384832017-09-16T21:07:32.783-05:00The Den of SnobberyA place to let out your inner elitist movie snob...
A movie review a day seemed like a good idea at the time... Now, I review what I can get to. Most reviews will have no score or letter grade, but the ones I repost from population GO will have the GO score visible. Post your comments, thoughts, arguments, criticisms, hatred, vitriol, and various lovely compliments in the space below each review. Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-80807045612400521332014-12-31T23:17:00.000-06:002014-12-31T23:17:11.520-06:00Day 335: The Babadook<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="The_Babadook_4" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63759" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_4.jpg" height="384" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="605" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"You can't get rid of the Babadook!"</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Horror is by far the most disposable of all film genres, if for no other reason than the fact that so much of it is disposable nonsense. You could count on one hand the number of truly good horror films that have been released this decade, and another hand would just about get you all of the good horror films this century. Bearing that in mind, when a legitimately good horror film comes along, the world needs to stop and take notice, and the new Australian horror film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>&nbsp;is&nbsp;one&nbsp;that is absolutely worth stopping, noticing, and celebrating. First time feature film director Jennifer Kent's film is an absolute masterstroke&nbsp;of psychological terror with a subtle undercurrent&nbsp;of legitimate fear of something that is truly more terrifying than any monster could ever hope to be.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="The_Babadook_5" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63758" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_5.jpg" height="384" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="605" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">All of the best horror films have one thing in common. They are allegories for a real, concrete issue facing humanity, but they never let the allegory outweigh the scares. The fact that this balance is so difficult to achieve has led to the severe lack of great horror films, and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>&nbsp;achieves it so effortlessly, it's almost scarier than anything in the film itself. The film borrows liberally from two of the great horror films,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Exorcist</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Shining</em>, while also managing to be an entirely new and different kind of horror film. In fact, it borrows from those films so successfully that the comparisons only help to bolster its status as something truly great.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">In a performance that is simply stunning,&nbsp;Essie Davis plays Amelia, a woman struggling to hold a job and raise her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) on her own. Her husband was killed in a car accident&nbsp;en route&nbsp;to the hospital, but Amelia survived, delivered&nbsp;Samuel, and must now face the world as a single parent. The film marvelously stacks the deck against Amelia, giving her a litany of truly un-winnable situations from a son with behavioral problems, to an uncaring boss, and friends and family that are at their wits end with her. The real trouble for her and Samuel starts, however, when they find a mysterious pop-up book on the shelf one night titled "Mister Babadook." Though she quickly realizes that the book is not age appropriate for her six year old, the boy latches on to the name Babadook and begins to use it as a catch-all phrase for some sort of malevolent spirit that compels both him and his mother to act in strange and violent ways.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="The_Babadook_1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63762" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_1.jpg" height="384" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="605" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Complicating matters even further are hallucinations suffered by Amelia of a physical representation of The Babadook that haunts her wherever she goes, lurking in the shadows, and waiting to overtake her. Hiding the book does no good, nor does destroying&nbsp;it, as it continues to turn up again on her doorstep, foretelling of a gruesome fate for both her and her son. Most of the delight in watching The Babadook comes in seeing how meticulously it's laying out a brilliant display of dominos, only to give them the slightest nudge toward a simply breathtaking finale that is certain to turn off the more casual viewers in the audience. The film is absolutely bonkers, particularly in its final twenty minutes, and those not willing to give themselves over to a crazy experience are going to throw their hands up in disbelief.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">What really and truly sells&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>, however, is that allegory constantly bubbling beneath the surface of the film, and giving a very extreme, but very effective, vision of what co-dependency can do to a relationship. There are likely other ways to read the film's overarching theme, but for me, the film was a powerful metaphor for the absolutely destructive nature of co-dependency, particularly between a parent and a child. Samuel relies on his mother for protection, but also thrusts himself into the "man of the house" role, telling his mother pointedly that he'll protect her from any monsters that come after her, even the dreaded Babadook himself.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="The_Babadook_2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63761" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_2.jpg" height="385" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="605" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film is fraught with tension almost from the very beginning, and Kent uses relatively low-fi methods to convey this creeping dread. Through the use of sharp editing and imagery borrowed from classic films and television shows, she creates a world that is both familiar and unsettling, keeping the audience in an almost constant state of unease. This is as white-knuckle a thriller as I've seen in some time, and Kent deserves the lion's share of praise that she's sure to get for her incredibly assured filmmaking. To watch&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>&nbsp;is to watch a film that understands the language of horror, but has enough tricks and sparks of inspiration as to feel wholly new and original.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As I mentioned earlier, Essie Davis is&nbsp;absolutely&nbsp;sensational in the lead role, being forced to run the gamut of demonstrable emotions and then some. Though she's a familiar face to Australian audiences, she's still something of an unknown commodity to Americans, making us feel like we've been missing out on a truly incredible actress for all these years. Her work here is amazing and worthy of every single ounce of praise she can be given. Kent also asks a lot of young Noah Wiseman, and he delivers in spades, giving a revelatory performance that matches Davis is intensity and brilliance. He holds his own remarkably well, and spends the bulk of the film playing off of Davis like a pro. Kent must once more be lauded for her truly inspired casting.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="The_Babadook_3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63760" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_3.jpg" height="384" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Babadook_3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="605" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Casual horror fans, and those who have come to accept just about anything with a ghost, goblin, or zombie at the center of a film, are going to be hard-pressed to enjoy&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>, if for no other reason than it exploits their familiarity with the genre while simultaneously giving them something new. Those willing to give themselves over to the film, and follow it down its many twisted and gnarly paths will find themselves rewarded with one of the best genre pictures in years. If you're looking for something unique, original, and yet unsettlingly familiar,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>&nbsp;will have you jumping for joy by the time the credits roll. While the waiting is often the hardest part when it comes to finding a film and a filmmaker that have something interesting to say, the reward is films like this one that value and appreciate their audience, and show their appreciation for that patience with something truly amazing. Give yourself over to&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Babadook</em>, you won't regret it.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 4.5/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u7wwWdnFGnQ/Uk8X4_GjxeI/AAAAAAAAAa4/D7Vryff-UzQ/s1600/4.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u7wwWdnFGnQ/Uk8X4_GjxeI/AAAAAAAAAa4/D7Vryff-UzQ/s1600/4.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.comingsoon.net/movie/the-babadook-2014#/slide/1" href="http://www.comingsoon.net/movie/the-babadook-2014#/slide/1" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Coming Soon</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-7568884634599616002014-12-26T20:55:00.000-06:002014-12-26T20:55:02.410-06:00Day 334: Into the Woods<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63531" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods1.jpg" height="427" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I was raised to be charming, not sincere."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">With the notable exception of&nbsp;<span style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">his work with Warren Beatty</span>, Stephen Sondheim does not have a great track record on film. Through no fault of his own, other than some questionable sign-offs on various elements that have gone into films with his music and songs in them, Sondheim has more or less proven that the theatre is truly the only place for his work. It was with this apprehension that I approached Rob Marshall's adaptation of one of Sondheim's most beloved musicals,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Into the Woods</em>, with the sting of Tim Burton's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Sweeney Todd</em>&nbsp;still spreading across my cheek. I am happy to say that at least half of this film is actually very good—the first half—and that it's not the complete disaster that I thought it might be.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">Into the Woods</em>&nbsp;is a melding of several different fairy tales together, and several factors beyond Sondheim's shoddy treatment on film contributed to my apprehension.&nbsp;Since Disney has a corner on that whole fairy tale market, their involvement was understandable, but still a bit uneasy. When the film's rating was announced as PG, I knew that cuts had to have been made to secure such a family friendly rating. Finally the rumors that were flying this past summer about&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.playbill.com/news/article/sondheim-issues-response-following-report-of-disney-into-the-woods-film-cha-322818" href="http://www.playbill.com/news/article/sondheim-issues-response-following-report-of-disney-into-the-woods-film-cha-322818" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">certain integral numbers being cut</a>&nbsp;only fueled that agitation for me. I'm happy to report that the rumors proved false, though it seems as though in the filmmakers' rush to make sure that the songs "Any Moment" and "Moments in the Woods" remained in the film, some other crucial stuff was cut.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63530" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods2.jpg" height="427" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The story centers around a number of fairy tale characters who all live in close proximity to one another, and whose paths all converge&nbsp;in their quest for happily ever after. A childless Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) seek to have the curse that has left them without a child lifted by the Witch (Meryl Streep) who placed it on them. This brings them into conflict with Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), whose cloak they need, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) whose cow they need, Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) whose slipper they need, and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy) whose golden hair they need. They all converge in the woods over a period of three nights, and because this is a fairy tale, they all get what they need to live happily ever after.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">This is where Sondheim and the show's book writer—and the film's screenwriter–James Lapine's show gets really interesting. Act 2 is set some time after they've all presumably gotten what they've wanted and a malaise sets in. The notion of what happens after "happily ever after" is an interesting one, and the show deals with this beautifully.&nbsp;The film's&nbsp;attempt to turn a neatly divided two act musical into a film, however, really falls apart at this point. The filmmakers seem to have opted to make the most family friendly musical, and so they've jettisoned much of the really tough stuff. It's all still sort of there in some form or another, but certain cuts really detract from the film's second half, and it's a weaker film as a result.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63529" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods3.jpg" height="427" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">I have to say that in terms of working overall as a film, the cuts weren't as bad as they could have been, and the film itself doesn't necessarily suffer from the condensed second act. As a fan of the show, though, I am disappointed in what they chose to cut and what they chose to keep. Certain characters were given really short shrift as a result of the cuts, and while they're not major characters—Rapunzel and The Steward (Richard Glover) leap immediately to mind—the world of the film feels a little less realized than it could have. In fact, to go back to Rapunzel for a moment, she literally hops onto a horse and rides right the hell out of the film at one point, causing another major character's grand freakout number to have far less resonance than it should.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's always hard to criticize a film adaptation of a work in another medium for the cuts they make, particularly when the screenplay was written by one of the original creators, but I do question why they took such a broad knife to the second act. Perhaps it's because when the show first premiered, the second act was weaker than it has subsequently become through rewrites. The temptation to toy and tinker with something has got to be strong, but it feels as if this tinkering was for the worse.&nbsp;With the transition between the acts completely lifted, the characters have no time to develop the dissatisfaction which drives all of their decision making in the second act. While these are likely issues that someone with no knowledge of the stage version would take issue with or even notice, I wonder how jarring that shift is for those audience members, because for me, it caused the film to stumble and never regain its footing. &nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63474" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods4.jpg" height="427" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Thankfully Marshall's cast is top notch, and make up for all of his and the script's shortcomings. It's no surprise at this point to say that Meryl Streep is outstanding, but there is truly nothing the woman cannot do. Her two big showstopping numbers are as gorgeously realized as a fan of the show could hope, and she infuses her character with the right amount of ethos as to keep her from being&nbsp;a total monster. Emily Blunt is also terrific as The Baker's Wife, and sells all of her character's many twists and turns with genuine emotion. The two child actors, Lilla Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone, are also incredibly good, and I didn't miss for a moment the fact that their roles are almost always played by adults onstage.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Johnny Depp, however, is so horrifically out of place in this film as to be laughably bad. His transition from one of the most respected actors of his generation into the guy whose entire character is based around what kind of hat he wears has been sad to watch. Here, he cranks to somewhat subdued sexual undertones of his number "Hello Little Girl" up to 11, making the fact that Red Riding Hood is played by a child all the more disturbing. I&nbsp;find myself coming back to&nbsp;the scene from&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Stripes</em>&nbsp;where Bill Murray's girlfriend tells him "It's just not that cute anymore." I am truly beginning to wonder if he'll ever rebound.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63473" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods5.jpg" height="427" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/woods5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">My biggest criticism with Marshall's direction is that the film fails to strike a solid tone. Some moments are played incredibly grounded and honest and real and most of those involve Streep or Blunt. Other moments, such as the very funny but very out of place staging of "Agony," are so wildly theatrical and artificial that they feel wholly out of place. The whole film bounces back and forth between these two tones, and it only gets worse in the second half. The film becomes literally very dark, as in you can't really see what's happening, and I began to wonder if Marshall understands the difference between tonally dark and physically dark. This is a problem that has long haunted Marshall as a director, and one that you're either on board for or fed up with.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Overall,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Into the Woods</em>&nbsp;is a solidly enjoyable film that retains much of the charm of its source material without being a total mockery of it. Had it been PG-13, twenty minutes longer, and more even in tone, it could have really been something. Instead it feels like yet another opportunity to turn an acquired taste like Sondheim into a universally acceptable product that everyone can get behind. That's sort of Disney's stock in trade, though, so it's ultimately unsurprising. Thankfully there are enough really good moments and really good performances to make the whole thing just that much better than it could have been, but it can't even begin to hold a candle to the original. Having come out on the other side of it, I keep going back to a moment when you can hear a tune from another Sondheim musical playing faintly in the background, which made me happy because I'm a geek, but made me scared that they may continue making film adaptations of his work that are nothing more than passable.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 3/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4u8Ctk0QW8/UmG3o67-zPI/AAAAAAAAAbY/YPfgS1XGwAs/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4u8Ctk0QW8/UmG3o67-zPI/AAAAAAAAAbY/YPfgS1XGwAs/s1600/3.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=intothewoods.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=intothewoods.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-24067717783771558352014-12-21T16:10:00.002-06:002014-12-21T16:10:17.527-06:00Day 333: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kl42tMEzNek/VJdE7tz6jsI/AAAAAAAABKc/rlKfFqFGxx0/s1600/hobbit1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Kl42tMEzNek/VJdE7tz6jsI/AAAAAAAABKc/rlKfFqFGxx0/s1600/hobbit1.jpg" height="268" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />"If more of us valued food, and cheer, and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."<br /><br />The most glaring issue with Peter Jackson's entire <i>Hobbit</i> trilogy is perfectly illustrated in the first ten minutes of its conclusion, <i>The Battle of the Five Armies</i>. He, and the films themselves as a result, has no concept of how long something should last. When last we left the dwarves and their hobbit companion little more than a year ago, they had just unleashed a terrible scourge on the denizens of Lake Town, inadvertently letting loose a vengeance driven dragon on them. The opening moments of this third and final film are nothing more than the conclusion of the last film, as Lake Town is destroyed and Smaug smote.<br /><br />Had this been two films as originally planned, this wouldn't be quite as glaring an issue as it is, but because Jackson chose to make this a trilogy, he must quickly do away with his third act antagonist from the previous film and sweep him under the rug so he can get on with this titular battle. Imagine for a moment that<i> The Empire Strikes Back</i> ended just before Luke and Vader had their duel on Cloud City and then that battle opened<i> Return of the Jedi</i>. The former film would have been lambasted for being incomplete, and the latter for quickly concluding an unfinished storyline to get down to the business at hand. Yet somehow, Tolkien fanboys are willing to give Jackson a pass for making an equally asinine choice because it gives them two and a half more hours in their favorite fantasy world.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ntsgqYBwUIU/VJdE7xx8LEI/AAAAAAAABKg/I6iIH_CD16U/s1600/hobbit2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ntsgqYBwUIU/VJdE7xx8LEI/AAAAAAAABKg/I6iIH_CD16U/s1600/hobbit2.jpg" height="268" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />In fact, when it comes right down to it, <i>The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies </i>isn't a terrible film, it's just a wholly unnecessary one. Despite an epic battle sequence which eats up the bulk of the film's running time, it's nothing but a 145-minute loose end tie-up session. I know that's reductionist of me to say, but it's the truth. It doesn't feel like the culmination of all the themes of the entire saga rolled into one film, the way the final<i> Lord of the Rings</i> film did. It feels instead like a man with a checklist ensuring that all of his boxes get ticked before we can mercifully go home and get on with our lives.<br /><br />As a bridge between <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, it's perfectly serviceable, but as entertainment, it's lacking in nearly every way. Are the battle sequences exciting? Not really. They're just a lot of fantastical beasts, nameless armies clashing, heads being lopped off at an alarming rate, and plain old noise. Jackson is also constantly shifting focus between his numerous characters, none of whom are true protagonists outside of the titular guy from the Shire who we'll get to in a moment. Attempting to make an audience care about multiple people at the same time, and often within the same breath, can work if done well, but it's frankly not done very well here.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B_bPl5_fVso/VJdE8myxfuI/AAAAAAAABKs/JgDNVq7XLrw/s1600/hobbit3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B_bPl5_fVso/VJdE8myxfuI/AAAAAAAABKs/JgDNVq7XLrw/s1600/hobbit3.jpg" height="264" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Such shifting was Jackson's strong suit in <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, constantly checking in with the main characters while also giving you a scope of what's happening in the overall battle. Here, he focuses so intensely on single moments that the audience loses sight of the big picture and becomes hopelessly lost in the shuffle. Hey look, that fairly major character just got killed, and here come an onslaught of orcs to deal with these other two characters, and this character is angry and wants revenge, and this other character is leaping up falling rocks, and it ultimately just makes me want to throw up my hands, crack open the book, and suss it all out for myself.<br /><br />An audience needs to feel something other than overwhelmed to connect with a film, and Jackson has truly lost sight of that. He thinks that simply showing us characters crying or dying in slow motion will elicit a response, but he does nothing to get us invested in anyone. Everyone's motivations are so muddied, and often change at the drop of a hat, making it impossible to keep pace with the various reversals borne out of such poor motivations. By the end of this thing, I couldn't tell you who gained what or why, which is a real failure on Jackson's part. He didn't keep a strong through line in this trilogy, choosing to send us off on so many side quests and missions that by the time Gandalf finally gets around to saying why it's so important for the dwarves to reclaim their home, I forgot that was what this whole thing was supposed to be about in the first place.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cJjB8gr-m1A/VJdE9phxTkI/AAAAAAAABK0/hU9GlYnSpwE/s1600/hobbit4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cJjB8gr-m1A/VJdE9phxTkI/AAAAAAAABK0/hU9GlYnSpwE/s1600/hobbit4.jpg" height="268" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Jackson also loves to throw so many things at you at once that oftentimes the coolest things get the least amount of attention. There's an entire scene of set-up for these giant creatures referred to as "earth eaters" which end up looking not unlike the sandworms from <i>Dune</i>. When they finally do show up several scenes later, we mostly get reaction shots of our heroes gazing at them in fear, and then they're out of the picture entirely. We're already here, dude. You've got our money, give us the god damned sandworms already! Instead Jackson chooses to give us yet another scene where some dwarf I could care less about lectures Thorin in how he's lost sight of what it was they were doing in the first place. I think he's just following his director's lead at that point, fellas. No need to get so down on him.<br /><br />The other truly careless thing about this final film is a curious focus on the Master of Lake Town's henchman Alfrid, played by Ryan Gage. His broad antics, which basically consist of him doing the exact same dereliction of duty routine every time, had no place in this film, and felt like an attempt by Jackson to put some humor into his otherwise totally dour film. These scenes are glaringly out of place and grow weary instantaneously. It also doesn't help that Gage has pitched his performance to such unbelievably theatrical heights that he seems to be angling to reprise his role in the inevitable parody of this film. It's stuff like this that really makes me think that Jackson has lost his mind.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sF9b_644k2Y/VJdE97vhHbI/AAAAAAAABK4/TO5Dibyijdw/s1600/hobbit5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sF9b_644k2Y/VJdE97vhHbI/AAAAAAAABK4/TO5Dibyijdw/s1600/hobbit5.jpg" height="288" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Thank goodness for Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins for giving this film, and frankly this entire trilogy, some sort of grounding. Though Bilbo was often relegated to the sidelines in his own story, he managed to score the most affecting scenes in each of the first two films, and does an admirable job of carrying this film despite the constant Sturm und Drang happening all around him. It might be the best piece of casting in this entire Middle Earth saga, making his treatment as an afterthought throughout all the more distressing.<br /><br />Let me make one thing perfectly clear. These films are not a total debacle on a par with George Lucas' <i>Star Wars </i>prequel trilogy. They feel wholly of a piece with the world that Jackson set up in his first trip to Middle Earth. They're just so leaden, so dull, and so full of unnecessary garbage, that they reek of the putrid stench of being cash grabs. There was simply no reason to expand a 300-page novel into nearly 500-minutes of screen time, particularly when they're so full of filler and feet-dragging. At this point in time, Peter Jackson has proven, fairly conclusively, that he's a one-trick pony. The most scathing indictment of all, however, is the fact that he's just not that good at pulling the trick off anymore.<br /><br />GO Rating: 1.5/5<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kxo4eQcHIT8/Uwpyfx4nT1I/AAAAAAAAAww/yvRrI8sZMPU/s1600/1.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kxo4eQcHIT8/Uwpyfx4nT1I/AAAAAAAAAww/yvRrI8sZMPU/s1600/1.5.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br />[Photos via <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=hobbit3.htm" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-42747493881767232862014-12-20T13:00:00.000-06:002014-12-20T13:00:54.552-06:00Day 332: Annie (2014)<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="1111746 Ð ANNIE" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63277" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie1.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie1.jpg" height="424" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"It's okay, I'm good at this part. I've had a lot of practice getting kicked out of places."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The modern updating/remake of the community theatre stalwart&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Annie</em>&nbsp;is a bit of a conundrum for my generation. Most of the people around my age grew up with John Huston's 1982 film version of the show, and many of those same kids who grew up loving that film now have children of their own ripe for introduction to its numerous charms. Then along comes this reimagining of the musical for the 21st century, and while it's admittedly a much more diverse and far less offensive version of the story (Punjab, anyone?), it also begs the question, do the kids of today really need everything tailor made for their sensibilities?</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Quvenzhane Wallis;Jamie Foxx" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63278" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie2.jpg" height="424" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Believe me when I tell you that such a question is far headier than the makers of this movie could have ever intended. However,&nbsp;from the minute this project was announced, it seemed like it was simply being made to be as different as possible from the original while still maintaining enough elements of the original to guarantee a built-in audience. Leaving the theater after sitting through two mind-numbing hours of auto-tuned versions of songs I've known since I was a child, I was left wondering why they really felt the need to even remake<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Annie</em>. Why not take the elements of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Annie</em>&nbsp;and make something that's not overtly beholden to such familiar source material?&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Had this film simply been titled some other girl's name, I wouldn't have to sit here and lament to you over the loss of much of Charles Strouse &amp; Martin Charnin's clever wordplay from the original. They could have used wholly original songs or repurposed popular music for their own ends. Because they chose not to, though,&nbsp;we're now forced&nbsp;to hear an impeccably crafted lyric like, "No one cares for you a smidge/When you're in an orphanage," replaced with "No one cares for you a bit/When you're a foster kid." Moves like that, and there are a lot of them in this film, are only going to make people wonder why these filmmakers didn't just start from scratch.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="1111746 Ð ANNIE" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63279" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie3.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie3.jpg" height="424" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The answer to that question basically gets to the heart of the problem with modern studio filmmaking in general, which is that there are no risks being taken at all anymore. A property has to have a built-in recognition with audiences, otherwise the studios fear that no one will turn out to see them. It's what leads to phrases like "From the creators of..." getting more prominent placement than the name of a project.&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Annie</em>&nbsp;has just sort of turned into the scapegoat for all of my issues with the state of film in 2014, but it's a worthy scapegoat, because it represents all of the myriad issues I have in microcosm.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">For anyone unfamiliar with the story of<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Annie</em>, it follows the converging lives of an orphan girl named Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis) and a lonely billionaire (Jamie Foxx), who are brought together by fate at a time when they need each other the most. In this film's case, Annie needs a family and—sigh—Will Stacks needs an image boost to help his flagging mayoral run against Harold Gray, a nod to the original creator of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Little Orphan Annie</em>, and one of the film's only legitimately clever conceits. Following an encounter on the streets that boosts Stacks' public opinion, he sends his assistant Grace (Rose Byrne) to retrieve Annie from the foster home run by Ms. Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) and come live in Stacks' home for the duration of his campaign, mainly because nothing says to voters "I give a damn" quite like taking in a needy kid.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="1111746 Ð ANNIE" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63280" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie4.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie4.jpg" height="400" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Over time, the two grow to love one another, but&nbsp;circumstances drive them apart only to reunite them in the end, so that everyone can live happily ever after. Because the film softens the antagonism of Ms. Hannigan, presumably because the studio was afraid to incur the wrath of foster parents everywhere, they instead invent an antagonist for this film in the guise of Stacks' campaign manager Guy (Bobby Cannavale). With his generic name and devious political dealings, he's the perfect 21st century antagonist: A weaselly white guy trying to take the easy road to success. The tenuous partnership between him and Ms. Hannigan makes sense, but giving her a redemptive arc that makes him the fall guy for all of the trouble to come doesn't, but again, Sony's got enough problems without foster moms beating down their doors.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">There are a handful of positive things I can say about this film. Rose Byrne and Jamie Foxx are both very good, and thankfully spend a lot of time on screen. They're also probably the only two performers not using auto-tune, which plagues this film's soundtrack, making it almost unbearable to listen to by the end. It's competently directed by Will Gluck (<em style="color: inherit;">Easy A</em>) who is the second odd directorial choice this Fall for a family flick, following Miguel Arteta's direction of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2014/10/day-319-alexander-and-terrible-horrible.html" target="_blank">Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day</a></em>. I'm also glad that we didn't have to suffer through the pain of seeing Will Smith's daughter Willow in the title role, as originally planned.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="1111746 Ð ANNIE" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-63281" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie5.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/annie5.jpg" height="424" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Other than that, there's not much to say other than the painfully obvious fact that I am not the target audience for this film. If you have kids, especially daughters, under the age of ten, they're going to eat this movie up. It's a delightful fantasy to them, and they'll walk around singing the songs for months. It does beg the question I originally posed to be brought up again, which is, do the children of this generation really need everything tailor made for them and their sensibilities? The problem with so many parents these days is that they want to fix the problems they had to deal with growing up, and it's making their children into entitled brats. Why shouldn't Annie be set in 2014 and not during the Depression? Why shouldn't Annie fly around in a helicopter and go see movies with Ashton Kutcher in them? That's what my kids do, so that's what the kids in these movies should do.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">I understand why this film was made, and it makes sense from a business perspective, but from an artistic perspective, it's completely baffling. I admire the intentions behind this film's creation, but the execution leaves lots to be desired. The moment the first lyric was altered to fit the modern age, they should have stopped and just gone and done their own thing. This film is the cinematic equivalent of a facelift. The familiar elements are there, but something's off, and it's disturbing to look at. It's not a bad movie, but there was really no reason to call it&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Annie</em>. You want to make this movie, that's fine, make it. Just call it something else. The saddest thing of all is that I don't even really like the original musical this is based on. I can only imagine how incensed I would feel if this were a beloved property from my childhood.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 2/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZuiBTHv7WW4/UrSlXC_QrFI/AAAAAAAAAmY/lEy99-9I62o/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZuiBTHv7WW4/UrSlXC_QrFI/AAAAAAAAAmY/lEy99-9I62o/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=annie2014.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=annie2014.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-88175751202594186382014-12-02T22:20:00.000-06:002014-12-03T07:05:02.585-06:00Day 331: Wild<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Wild1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62513" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild1.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild1.jpg" height="399" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"You like my shoes?"</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">There are two ways to make a film based on a true story. The first is to blur the facts into a fictional narrative that ends up serving the truth by making it more dramatic. The second is to do a straightforward recreation of the facts in an attempt to shuck dramatic convention in favor of verisimilitude. The first way is almost always the most successful, and nearly every great film based on a true story has hewn to this formula. It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Wild</em>&nbsp;is an overly earnest attempt to be that second kind of film, but features so many absurdly fantastical sequences and characters that speak mostly in platitudes, that any desire to be truthful is rendered patently nonsensical.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Based on the true story of pretty blonde girl Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) and her attempt to find herself by hiking the 1,100 mile Pacific Crest Trail,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Wild</em>&nbsp;is Oprah's book club pablum meant to sate the appetites of similarly pretty American women who have eaten, prayed, loved, and had their fill of chicken soup for the soul. As someone who has an enormous amount of respect for women, and is doing his best to raise two of them into fine, outstanding young members of society, I have to wonder why women continue to line up to be pandered to at the bookstore and the box office. Not only does&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Wild</em>&nbsp;promote bad decision making, it downright romanticizes it.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Wild2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62514" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild2.jpg" height="399" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Now look, I'm not trying to say that there's not value in the message of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Wild</em>, but it's a film tailor made for people who prefer to let others make mistakes and then attempt to live better lives&nbsp;by osmosis. It's the kind of sickening tripe that was so prominent in the "Stop the Insanity" mid-90s in which it is set, and is the perfect story to read on your Kindle Fire XD while you sit by your electric fireplace and sip a pumpkin spice latte. It's the most bullshit kind of feminism that exists in the world, as it gently massages the shoulders of women everywhere who've made countless mistakes in their lives only to realize that those mistakes make you who you are.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Cheryl Strayed has a tale to tell that's perfect for a twelve-step testimony, which is about as deep as this film gets. It's then gussied up in the makeup-free glamour of Hollywood, where poverty looks like it just stumbled away from the craft service table toward&nbsp;a director who can shake a&nbsp;camera in front of its face to convey how gritty it looks. The film doesn't have an ounce of truth in it, and dishes out Robert Fulghum-esque life lessons&nbsp;like it's reinventing the wheel. It's a cheat to dish out wisdom that sounds like it came from a pamphlet as if you're reciting Shakespeare.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Wild3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62515" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild3.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild3.jpg" height="399" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Director Jean-Marc Vallée emptied out his bag of tricks with last year's&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-dallas-buyers-club/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-dallas-buyers-club/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Dallas Buyers Club</em></a>, but there he at least had two knockout lead performers who were able to elevate the marginal material with which they were working. Here he shows his limitations by&nbsp;making a nearly identical film in virtually every regard. The film's structure is a nightmarish labyrinth of memories that arise at a moment's notice, flashbacks, and sometimes even flashbacks within flashbacks. Cheryl's memories are often triggered by music, and while the soundtrack is aces, featuring everything from Portishead to Simon &amp; Garfunkel—clearly the influence of screenwriter and musicophile Nick Hornby—it's a trick that overstays its welcome almost instantaneously.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film's other achilles heel is a trend that began with 2006's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Queen</em>, which is the human/wild animal staredown. This moment is supposed to convey a profound sense of character by recognizing and empathizing with that which can't be tamed, but it's so overplayed at this point in time as to be laughable. Cheryl Strayed is a regular Doctor Doolittle, conversing with horses, foxes, crickets, and even an alpaca—or a llama, I'm not entirely sure. If only a great wizard could show up in Hollywood and send this trope back to the fiery chasm from whence it came.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Wild5" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62517" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild5.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Wild5.jpg" height="399" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">This brings us, inevitably, to Reese Witherspoon. Ms. Witherspoon seems like a nice enough person, but her limitations are nearly as great as the wide variety of roles she continues to play. She never fully divorces herself from any of her characters, which is the ultimate movie star trait, but it's also terribly distracting. The one time she ever really and truly pushed herself away from her instincts was in&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Election</em>, and she is sublimely good in that film. She's now a movie star, however, and that means that she doesn't have to really try anymore, her talents will shine through no matter what. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to believe her in any role, let alone one in which she's showing the audience how much work she's doing rather than just actually doing it. Thank goodness none of us had to suffer the indignities of seeing her play Amazing Amy in&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Gone Girl</em>, it might have derailed that entire film.&nbsp;</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Wild</em>&nbsp;moves from one "learning experience" to the next, Cheryl encounters all manner of people from scary, rapey hillbillies, to a bunch of damn, dirty hippies comforting one another in the wake of Jerry Garcia's death. It feels simultaneously honest and fake as the digital film it was shot on, as this film foolishly attempts to be both types of true story films I mentioned earlier. I think the "hiking to find yourself" film is as played out as just about every other ridiculously ham handed cliché this film revels in. Audiences deserve better than this, and until they come to that realization on their own, we're going to continue to suffer through these awful films that think they have something new to offer to the discussion.&nbsp;To paraphrase several quotes at once, if an actor shits in the woods, will anyone be left who wants to watch?</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 0.5/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ps9q-MaJHfk/Uy5Ms0l436I/AAAAAAAAAyk/qhCgmWoUCuw/s1600/0.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ps9q-MaJHfk/Uy5Ms0l436I/AAAAAAAAAyk/qhCgmWoUCuw/s1600/0.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wild_2014/" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wild_2014/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Rotten Tomatoes</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-50251500658085129692014-11-28T18:34:00.003-06:002014-11-30T11:52:58.600-06:00Day 330: Penguins of Madagascar<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62272" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Penguins1.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Penguins1.jpg" height="349" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I don't think I like your attitude, vending machine... Or your prices."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Dreamworks'&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Madagascar</em>&nbsp;franchise is its longest running next to the&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Shrek</em>&nbsp;franchise, so it's only fitting that they would execute a spin-off&nbsp;involving a beloved side character,&nbsp;in much the same way they did with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Puss in Boots</em>&nbsp;three years ago. The quartet of super resourceful penguins from the films already have their own television show on Nickelodeon, so giving them their own film has a lot of advantages, namely a built in brand and following. The only real problem with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Penguins of Madagascar</em>&nbsp;the film, however, is that there's really no reason for it to exist. Apart from some funny jokes and inspired casting choices, the film feels like an unnecessarily protracted episode of the television series.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's a good thing that the penguins themselves are entertaining enough to spend ninety minutes of your time with, but a&nbsp;meandering plot coupled with a ridiculously bloated climax truly makes you feel every one of those ninety minutes. Like so many bit characters who have taken the spotlight before them, the penguins' antics are amusing enough in small doses, but with no foil for their shenanigans, the film&nbsp;doesn't have a strong center—making the prospect of that&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Minions</em>&nbsp;film they advertised before this movie even more daunting. Sure, there are worse ways to spend your time, and kids will eat&nbsp;it&nbsp;up with delight, but to turn any side character into the focal point of an entire film requires the kind of discipline Dreamworks has never really had in any substantial quantity.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62273" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/penguins2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/penguins2.jpg" height="348" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film's best&nbsp;bits come early, including an all-too-brief origin story for the quartet narrated by every child's favorite documentarian,&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8y5EPv6Y8" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8y5EPv6Y8" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Werner Herzog</a>. I'm obviously joking as Herzog is clearly there for the amusement of the film literate parents in the audience, but when he utters the line "chubby bun-buns," it becomes apparent that this is the extent of the filmmakers knowledge of what to do with Herzog. The film as a whole would have been infinitely better had Herzog maintained his narration throughout the film, but after five minutes, he's gone, never to be heard from again.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">His portion of the film covers the formation of the group we already know from their countless other adventures, but by the time the title is flashed on screen, we've jumped ahead to the middle of&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-madagascar-3-europes-most-wanted/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-madagascar-3-europes-most-wanted/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Madgascar 3</em></a>, to pick up their side quest from that film. For those of you unfamiliar with the penguins, there's Skipper (Tom McGrath), the boneheaded leader, Kowalski (Chris Miller), the bluntly honest brains of the group, Rico (Conrad Vernon), the non verbal loose cannon, and Private (Christopher Knights), the timidly cute one. It's established early on in the film that Private wants to prove himself a valuable member of the team, and so the rest of the film is completely in service of that plot.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62275" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/penguins4.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/penguins4.jpg" height="350" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">During a&nbsp;mission to procure Private's favorite cheesy snacks from a vending machine deep within Fort Knox, the penguins run afoul of Dave&nbsp;(John Malkovich), aka Dr. Octavius Brine, an octopus who has a convoluted history with the penguins. Dave's plan isn't so much world domination as it is getting everyone in the world to turn against all penguins, the way they turned against him, by transforming the penguins into ugly monsters that no one could love. In pursuit of Dave, for reasons that are never really explained in any satisfactory manner, is the North Wind, a group of cold climate animals that possess technological resources beyond anyone's imagination. Led by a wolf mistakenly named Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch), they're trying to stop Dave as well, but view the penguins as more hindrance than help.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The only ace up the film's sleeve is uncovering Dave's real plan and then figuring out how exactly Private is going to prove himself to the others, which makes the numerous action sequences somewhat dull in retrospect. They're enjoyable enough, but every one of them goes on for so long, mainly because there's just not enough of a story here to which any time can be devoted. This is ultimately the film's biggest missed opportunity when you consider that nearly all of Dreamworks' output of late from the aforementioned&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-madagascar-3-europes-most-wanted/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-madagascar-3-europes-most-wanted/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Madagascar 3</em></a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-how-to-train-your-dragon-2/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-how-to-train-your-dragon-2/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">How to Train Your Dragon 2</em></a>, and even this year's&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-mr-peabody-sherman/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-mr-peabody-sherman/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman</em></a>, have all favored story over spectacle. In fact, the film that this shares the most DNA with isn't&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Puss in Boots</em>, but&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-the-croods/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-the-croods/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">The Croods</em></a>: A simple premise with a clear endgame in sight loaded down with sight gags and drawn out action sequences that make the film just barely reach feature length.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62276" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/penguins5.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/penguins5.jpg" height="347" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The other shame is that there's some great voice work happening here, despite the actors not being given much to work with. All of the penguins' voice actors have been doing this for the better part of a decade, so they nail their characters, but Malkovich and Cumberbatch are forced to do the most they can with very little, including an interminable bit involving Malkovich giving orders that mimic the names of celebrities—i.e. "Nicolas, cage them!" It should also be noted that Cumberbatch has yet to learn the proper way to pronounce the word "penguin," still referring to them as "<a data-mce-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GnLDJAgrws" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GnLDJAgrws" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">pengwings</a>," though I'm not sure if it's intentional at this point or not. The jokes come fast and furious, however they only land about 40% of the time, making the film more cute than funny. Again, this is a perfectly fine goal for&nbsp;a film&nbsp;that goes direct to video, but cute doesn't really cut it on the big screen.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">If you have little ones, they're going to love the film, but I also suspect they won't give it much thought after it's over. There's nothing unique, original, or terribly interesting that happens, and they'll notice that much of the film's climax is borrowed from&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-despicable-me-2/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-despicable-me-2/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Despicable Me 2</em></a>. Their parents, on the other hand, will likely be less enchanted by it and its incredibly disposable nature. It's not a bad film, but it feels like a gigantic step backward for an animation studio that's really been doing its best work in the last few years, even within this very franchise. About the best thing I can say is that its homage to<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</em>&nbsp;is light years better than the one that&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-star-trek-into-darkness/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-star-trek-into-darkness/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Star Trek Into Darkness</em></a>&nbsp;tried to pull off last year, and that's just about the strangest thing I've ever thought when leaving a kids movie.<br /><br />GO Rating 2.5/5<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=penguinsofmadagascar.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=penguinsofmadagascar.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-85264901519179754132014-11-25T23:07:00.001-06:002014-11-25T23:07:22.209-06:00Day 329: The Theory of Everything<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Theory1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62194" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory11.jpg" height="425" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory11.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"Look what we made."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Bear with me as I suss something out momentarily. I recently watched Howard Stern's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Private Parts</em>&nbsp;again and one of the things that really struck me about watching the film in 2014—17 years after it came out and 14 years after Stern and his first wife divorced—is how utterly meaningless the love story aspect of the film is now. Granted as a time capsule of their relationship and the things they went through together and how they relied on one another is still powerful, but his final summation and thesis statement for the film is now completely diminished. It was with similar apprehension that I approached the new film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Theory of Everything</em>, based on a book by physicist Stephen Hawking's first wife Jane.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Would this film similarly falter when the audience knows the outcome? Thankfully the answer is no, but perhaps more regrettably, the film is an utter failure as a love story, and that's the angle with which the film is clearly being sold to the general public. To&nbsp;weigh&nbsp;it&nbsp;against&nbsp;another film that's perhaps a more fitting comparison, consider another award baiting romance from several years ago, Roberto Benigni's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Life is Beautiful</em>. That is a film which shifts its love story halfway through the film, and shows Benigni's character Guido goes from learning about love by wooing his future wife in the first half, to demonstrating unconditional love to his child in the second. This film tries to pull off a similar feat, but stumbles in a big way and never recovers.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Theory2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62195" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory2.jpg" height="425" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">When we're introduced to&nbsp;Stephen (Eddie Redmayne), he is a doctoral candidate at Cambridge in 1963, and has an appropriately awkward meet cute with graduate student Jane (Felicity Jones). Their courtship is the stuff of classic movie romances, but not long after they begin to fall for one another, Stephen is diagnosed with ALS, a motor neuron disease that the doctor tells him will claim his ability to move and eventually breathe on his own, and that he will be dead within two years. Despite Stephen's best efforts to shut Jane out, she has fallen in love with him and refuses to give up on him. They marry, and not long after Stephen is awarded his doctorate for his revolutionary theory about the formation of our universe.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">So far, so good, but then the film begins to, pardon the expression, degenerate, and in a move that I would consider bold were it not so unintentional, explodes in on itself much like Hawking's initial theory about black holes and the big bang. Stephen and Jane don't necessarily fall out of love, but it's clear that neither can give the other what they truly need, despite their clear affection for one another. &nbsp;When Jane's mother (Emily Watson) suggests that she join the church choir, she meets hunky choir director Jonathan (Charlie Cox). Jonathan is no stranger to tragedy, having recently lost his wife to leukemia, and he begins spending more time with the family, and inevitably forms a pearl clutching chaste bond with Jane.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Theory3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62196" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory3.jpg" height="490" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">In the film's most egregiously manipulative scene, Stephen travels to Bordeaux, France where he suffers an attack at a concert and slips into a coma. This is juxtaposed with a camping trip Jonathan takes with Jane and her children in which we're all but shown that they finally consummate their very British attraction to one another. For a film that has spent a good deal of time arguing science versus faith, the scene is staged like something out of a misguided Christian abstinence film, showing teens that if they stray from their committed relationship, bad things will befall their significant other. It's out of place in a good film, but in a film seemingly bred in a test tube to win awards, it feels right at home.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Once Stephen loses the ability to speak,&nbsp;Jane brings on Elaine (Maxine Peake),&nbsp;a new caretaker&nbsp;designed to help Stephen get back in touch with the world. Pardon the expression, but Elaine basically wants to fuck Stephen's brains out the moment she lays eyes on him, and Jane is now racked with suspicion, and the film begins to resemble something that wouldn't seem out of place on Lifetime. It becomes horribly reductive, and expects us to just be okay with Stephen and Jane still loving one another, but also loving others. Were this a film about a non-monogamous relationship, that would be one thing, but the filmmakers spend the better part of an hour setting this up as a love for the ages only to pull the rug out from under the audience.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="TTOE_D15_ 05145.jpg" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62197" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory4.jpg" height="410" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Would it have been better to ignore all of this and just show their love for one another and throw the rest of these developments into a post-film scrawl? I'm not entirely sure, but in its current state, the film is trying to have it both ways. The emotion of the film's ending will land with even the most cynical audience members, but in retrospect it feels like a cheap ploy to get you reaching for a kleenex rather than reflecting on what it actually all means. Director James Marsh is a manipulative son of a bitch, who has no shame in bombarding the more susceptible audience members into crying every five minutes or so, and his heavy hand makes the film feel like the cheap awards grab it really is at its core.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Thankfully the two leads are tremendous in the film, and their performances end up curing a multitude of sins. Redmayne is outstanding&nbsp;in a role&nbsp;that could have very easily reached<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;I Am Sam</em>&nbsp;levels of gunpoint forced empathy, but he sells the pain and anguish of Hawking's reality&nbsp;beautifully. Jones may not have the more physically demanding role, but she's got a tougher time with a more nuanced shift from doting to loving to suffering to frustrated, and she pulls it off with aplomb. The supporting cast from Cox and Watson to David Thewlis and Simon McBurney as Hawking's father is also top notch, with very few false notes to be found.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Theory5" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62198" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory5.jpg" height="481" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Theory5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's a shame that Marsh's direction and the overbearing strings of Jóhann Jóhannson's score make the film feel like an attempt to recreate&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">A Beautiful Mind</em>&nbsp;whole cloth. In fact, I jokingly referred to the film as&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">A Beautiful Mind 2: Hawking Boogaloo</em>, mainly because that's the exact spot in the awards season lineup this film is hoping to fill. Many will be suckered by this film's charms, and they are many, but I hope that the rest of us can see when we're being so brashly manipulated, and not succumb to the temptation to fall in love with this film. It's got some good performances, but it's also got the stench of a film that thinks it's a whole lot more&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Important</em>—with a capital I—than it actually is.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 2/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5r-kE_brE/UjPonX4qeUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/8EkNZUaL41Y/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5r-kE_brE/UjPonX4qeUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/8EkNZUaL41Y/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=theoryofeverything.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=theoryofeverything.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-16805213128996919032014-11-23T17:11:00.001-06:002014-11-23T17:11:19.425-06:00Day 328: Foxcatcher<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="FOXCATCHER" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62071" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox5.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"What do you hope to achieve, Mark?"</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Very, very few directors make a career out of working exclusively in the realm of the "based on a true story" genre, but Bennett Miller has proven to be quite comfortable in this realm. His third and latest film,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Foxcatcher</em>, sets its sights on chemical heir John DuPont (Steve Carell) and his bizarre, often contentious relationship with Olympic gold medal wrestlers Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo). It's a story of a lot of things gone awry from misplaced patriotism to the sheltered world of the extremely wealthy, and there are a lot of ideas flowing through it, but these ideas never really gel into a cohesive story about any one thing, which ultimately works against the film.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film's biggest issue is that it doesn't necessarily have a point of view; There's no one character that the film is really about. It's about all three of these men, but really only gets inside the head of Mark Schultz, mainly because he's a bit of a dolt and an open book, making him the easiest of the three to psychoanalyze. DuPont is a total enigma, and&nbsp;Miller and his screenwriters E.&nbsp;Max Frye&nbsp;and Dan Futterman knew they couldn't really hang their hat on him as the protagonist, so they sort of split the difference between the Schultzes, and end up with a curiously unfocused story.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="FOXCATCHER" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62068" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox2.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The first half and a hair beyond that focus intensely on Mark, who forever lives in the shadow of his much more well-known brother. When he receives a call from Jack (Anthony Michael Hall)&nbsp;to come and meet with the&nbsp;wealthy but somewhat reclusive DuPont, Mark jumps at the chance to meet with someone who seems interested in him. DuPont offers Mark the chance to come and live at his estate and train at his newly built facilities, dubbed Foxcatcher, in preparation for the upcoming World Championships and 1988 Olympics in Seoul. DuPont pitches himself as a patriot, and someone who is fed up with the way America treats its Olympians, and offers Mark this chance to finally distance himself from his brother.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">At first, Mark and DuPont form a bond based on their mutual&nbsp;failure&nbsp;to live up to their family name. DuPont's mother (Vanessa Redgrave) is a world class horse breeder, and he sees wrestling as his way to get the acclaim from people that seems to only be lavished upon his mother. It's a powerful bond, and one which the film wisely focuses its attention on, without ever really spelling it out for the audience. Unfortunately after winning the World Championship, DuPont begins&nbsp;to treat Mark&nbsp;as&nbsp;something of a conduit through which he can reach his much more successful brother Dave, and their once touching yet undeniably bizarre relationship begins to feel strained. Things really take a turn for Mark once&nbsp;Dave&nbsp;accepts DuPont's offer and moves his&nbsp;wife (Sienna Miller) and children&nbsp;onto the estate to begin working for Foxcatcher.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="FOXCATCHER" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62069" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox3.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">At this point in the film, things start to really lose focus. DuPont was adamant about bringing Dave to work with the team, yet knows that he can't control him the way he controlled his brother. Mark slowly but surely fades into the background, until he just sort of disappears from the film altogether. All of the work the audience has invested in caring about Mark must now go into still caring about Dave and DuPont, and it's a big risk that doesn't quite pay off for the script or the film. The timeline also starts to get a little hazy, and the passage of time becomes almost impossible to keep track of once the '88 Olympics come and go. I hate to constantly harp on films where the third act fails to live up to the promise of the first two, but this is another film in which that's sadly the case.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">More so than that, however, is the fact that the film feels like a damn good one hour episode of Dateline, or some other true crime show, stretched out to an almost unbearable 134 minutes. The film does build a good amount of tension, but much like Michael Haneke at his worst, building tension for over an hour doesn't make a film compelling in and of itself. In fact, this film feels like it could have been made by Haneke, as it will likely work incredibly well for some in the audience, but ultimately left me feeling cold.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="FOXCATCHER" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62070" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox4.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Thank goodness Miller is still an ace when it comes to casting his films, as the core trio of actors here is spectacular. Carell transforms himself wholly into DuPont, even cutting a profile that looks downright birdlike, nicely complimenting his insistence on being called "Eagle," as well as his general infatuation with birds and ornithology—another subplot that ultimately goes nowhere. Nevertheless, Carell nails his performance and sells it in a way that will more than likely silence anyone who's looked at him as nothing more than a buffoonish funny man. He's got an edge to him that Miller exploits to great ends.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Tatum is another surprising revelation, proving yet again that he's the real deal. He makes Mark a pitiable character without ever really appealing for pity. It's a terrific balancing act, and one which he pulls off with aplomb. It's perhaps least surprising that Ruffalo is great, only because anyone who's followed his career knows what a terrific actor and chameleon he is, but he once again delivers a solid performance here. The film is handsomely shot by&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Zero Dark Thirty</em>&nbsp;cinematographer Greig Fraser, and the score by Rob Simonsen is both spare and haunting, nicely complimenting the similar imagery.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="FOXCATCHER" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62067" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox1.jpg" height="338" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Fox1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The real shame is that this was probably a crack ninety minute film stretched beyond its means to well over two hours. I'm not sure if it could have used more editing in the writing process or in post-production, but either way it just feels downright interminable by the time the climax rolls around. It's a good movie, with some terrific performances and a handful of great scenes, but it feels truly less than the sum of its parts. One should never leave a film based on a true story feeling that an already enigmatic human being has become even more so. The film purports to offer&nbsp;a character study about DuPont, yet manages to put such a fascinating person even further out of reach for the audience, which is ultimately its fatal flaw.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 2.5/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=foxcatcher.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=foxcatcher.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-42285263052442465752014-11-16T13:32:00.004-06:002014-11-16T13:36:10.471-06:00Day 327: Interstellar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yQKuXvXDrH8/VGj7XBULjkI/AAAAAAAABJo/mGuZ8Fn8bXg/s1600/IS1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yQKuXvXDrH8/VGj7XBULjkI/AAAAAAAABJo/mGuZ8Fn8bXg/s1600/IS1.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div><br />"Love is the one thing that transcends time and space."<br /><br />It seems appropriate that <i>Interstellar</i> began life as a Steven Spielberg movie, because nobody does big budget big idea movies quite like Spielberg. Except for Christopher Nolan. Nolan has become the 21st century's Spielberg, and it started with <i>The Dark Knight</i>. Much like <i>Jaws</i> did 33 years earlier, <i>The Dark Knight</i> reinvented the blockbuster and sent studios scrambling to copy its formula without ever really understanding it. And much like Spielberg, as Nolan's success grew, so too did his ambition.<br /><br />This brings us to <i>Interstellar</i>, Nolan's most ambitious movie by a mile, and unquestionably his least successful. Inspired by everyone from Georges Mèliés and Jules Verne to Stanley Kubrick and Stephen Hawking, Nolan backdoors his most personal film inside an enormous special effects bonanza, designed to simultaneously appeal to everyone. Unfortunately the film ends up appealing only to a very select audience. Nolan wants to take big ideas like the meaning of life and meld them with even bigger ideas like the infinity of our universe, but the film is so horrendously unfocused that it ultimately ends up feeling hollow and meaningless.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4-7Ov_f7Oc/VGj7X16LUaI/AAAAAAAABJw/hJxP_VPbmnY/s1600/IS2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4-7Ov_f7Oc/VGj7X16LUaI/AAAAAAAABJw/hJxP_VPbmnY/s1600/IS2.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />As a matter of fact, the film it actually has the most in common with isn't<i> 2001: A Space Odyssey</i> or <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i>, but <i>Monty Python's The Meaning of Life</i>. One simply cannot deal with a topic as vast as that in a single film, and to do so is folly. <i>The Meaning of Life</i> is arguably the weakest big screen effort by The Pythons, though it does have moments of sheer genius. <i>Interstellar</i> is in the exact same boat. It works in fits and spurts, but never really gels as a movie, and feels like so much less than the sum of its parts.<br /><br />The most obvious problem with the film is its script. It's truly lousy and doesn't work as science fiction, mainly because it's so concerned with delivering too much science, it loses sight of the fiction. The human drama falls flat at almost every single turn, and that's due to a major problem with the ending that I will get to in a moment. It also suffers from a problem that a large majority of Nolan's films suffer from which is the need for a character or characters to over-explain everything. His concepts are often so complicated and convoluted that they require lengthy explanations by a character in order to make sense.<br /><br />Joe Pantoliano's character in <i>Memento</i> does this in his final scene, DiCaprio &amp; JGL both do it, a lot, in <i>Inception</i>. Good lord does Bane ever do this in <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>. In fact, the one time he did this masterfully, i.e. pulling off an incredibly complex plot and/or twist without a ton of explanation, was <i>The Prestige</i>. It happens again in this film, twice actually, and both times it drags the film down to an absurd extent. The film does not move at a fast enough pace to not grind to a halt when a character decides to explain him or herself, and until Nolan figures out how to write a script without doing this, his films will continue to go down in quality.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--7f2dH8i2ZU/VGj7Z63Rz9I/AAAAAAAABJ4/2-NkstFCR20/s1600/IS3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--7f2dH8i2ZU/VGj7Z63Rz9I/AAAAAAAABJ4/2-NkstFCR20/s1600/IS3.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>Spoiler Alert</b><br /><b><br /></b>I cannot truly discuss why I disliked the film without going into spoilers, so skip these two paragraphs if you haven't seen the film. For me, the film really went off the rails when Matt Damon showed up. It wasn't necessarily his character or what his character does. It was incredibly obvious that he was going to throw a wrench into the plans because they hadn't come up against any real threats to their mission at that point. The issue was that he had to explain his entire plot as he was attempting to kill McConaughey's character. This is Bond villain 101 level, "allow me to explain the entire plot to you," villainy and it felt horrendously out of place.<br /><br />The much, much bigger issue, however, was the fact that at the end, when McConaughey finally reunites with his—much older—daughter, he talks to her for all of ten seconds before deciding to go see Anne Hathaway. What the actual fuck? All of his bluster and speechifying about the love between a parent and a child being the only pure form of love, and now he's gonna throw that all away and go fly off to lay some intergalactic pipe in his fellow Oscar winner? That's the point at which the movie lost me entirely, and actually made me angry. It rendered everything that came before utterly meaningless, and that's the biggest tragedy of all.<br /><b><br /></b><b>End Spoiler Alert</b><br /><b><br /></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7pNb7jhXqT4/VGj7a3V6OJI/AAAAAAAABKI/lL0yYUVcgvk/s1600/IS4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7pNb7jhXqT4/VGj7a3V6OJI/AAAAAAAABKI/lL0yYUVcgvk/s1600/IS4.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div><b><br /></b><br />Maybe one day I will reconsider my position on the film. Perhaps I will look as foolish 40 years from now as the critics who panned <i>2001</i> upon its first release. I don't think that will be the case, however. I saw this the way the filmmaker intended it to be seen, and it still failed to awe me in the way he hoped. One of the things that makes <i>2001</i> so great is the lack of a need to explain things. This film spends its third act explaining absolutely everything in the most hackneyed ways imaginable, whether it's via a villain explaining every facet of their plot or a hero explaining the moral lesson he's finally come to terms with. That's bad screenwriting, any way you slice it, and all the special effects in the world can't make up for a script as deeply flawed as this one.<br /><br />A wise man (or woman) one said that sometimes the simplest fix is also the best fix. How easy it would have been to fix this script before it ever got in front of a camera, let alone had millions of dollars worth of after effects added to it in an attempt to compensate for the fact that it's just not that great of an idea? I admire Nolan for reaching for the stars, but I shake my head in disbelief over the fact that he failed to do such a basic thing as delivering a competent script.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_2MyUF5OEr4/VGj7aCD8JJI/AAAAAAAABJ8/gP4sO9KLV_g/s1600/IS5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_2MyUF5OEr4/VGj7aCD8JJI/AAAAAAAABJ8/gP4sO9KLV_g/s1600/IS5.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />[Photos via <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=interstellar.htm" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-64176041970350959162014-11-09T16:02:00.000-06:002014-11-09T16:02:19.800-06:00Day 326: Laggies<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="laggies1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61396" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies11.jpg" height="425" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies11.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I'm my own animal."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">&nbsp;When the quarter-life crisis became an accepted rite of passage about a decade ago, it hit right when I was in the midst of mine. It seemed like a viable way to give a name to that malaise that hits all twenty-somethings who have to grudgingly accept that life isn't going to be all that we had thought it would as teens. It's certainly not a new phenomenon, it's just that in this day and age, we love to label things in an attempt to connect and bond with one another over&nbsp;such&nbsp;universally unavoidable experiences. The new film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Laggies</em>&nbsp;attempts to put a face on the quarter-life crisis in much the same way&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Garden State</em>&nbsp;did a decade ago, and overall it's a much less cloying and twee look at&nbsp;this phase in life, but it's&nbsp;in many ways the exact same film.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As Megan, Brit Keira Knightley plays that decidedly most American of twenty-something women: the one content to cling to the past rather than accept the realities of the future. Her friends to whom she was so close in high school have all moved on and gotten married or are having children, and Megan seems content to spin a sign by the side of the road for the her father's (Jeff Garlin) tax business. At the wedding of her best friend Allison (Ellie Kemper), Megan's longtime boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber) attempts to propose to her, but Megan freaks out and flees the wedding.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="laggies2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61392" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies2.png" height="344" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies2.png" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Stopping at a grocery store, Megan encounters a group of teenagers who ask her to buy them some alcohol. Desperate to reconnect with her youth, Megan follows through and then clings to the gang for the rest of the night, making a special connection with 16-year old Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz). The two then forge a relationship of mutual exploitation that finds Megan posing as Annika's mother for a meeting with a school counselor, and Megan asking Annika if she can crash at her place for a week to basically drop out of society and, presumably, figure out what she wants to do with her life.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The script is both savvy and clever enough to address the obvious problems with a character like Megan doing all of this, but it's also mixed with high doses of whimsy that undercut the honesty of so many moments in the film. There really is no good reason for Annika's single divorce lawyer father Craig (Sam Rockwell) to let Megan stay at their home, but he does, at it sets up a myriad of eye-rolling rom-com contrivances. Megan is an incredibly deceptive person who manages to withhold information from certain individuals long enough to get what she needs from them, and that should be a much more troubling trait for a protagonist than it actually is. Knightley's winning performance makes her faults secondary to her virtues, making Megan a much more likable character that she has any right to be.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="laggies4" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61394" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies4.jpg" height="459" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Though her inevitable relationship with Craig is projected virtually from minute one, it's both a joy to watch it unfold and a bit foreboding at the same time because we just know that the truth will come out at some point. Though this is a plot device as old as time, it's to the credit of both Knightley and especially Rockwell that it works at all. Rockwell is an utter delight in everything he does, but it's surprisingly nice to see him play a guy that's been dealt a lot of lousy luck in love, yet still clings to the hope that things are going to work out in the end. I hate to sound like a broken record at this point, but if&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Laggies</em>&nbsp;could have used more of anything, it's Sam Rockwell.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Director Lynn Shelton is a darling of the mumblecore scene, and her films&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Humpday&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Your Sister's Sister</em>, while a welcome departure from the usual masturbatory influences of her contemporaries like The Duplass Brothers and Joe Swanberg, are nonetheless steeped in contrivance. It's disheartening, then, to see her go whole hog toward a story that plays out, almost by the moment, exactly how you expect it to, but as with the rest of her work, her excellent cast helps to elevate the material. In fact, it's really a cop-out for me to say that the film has no right to work, since it's formula has been proven to work countless times in countless other films of this ilk. The best one can hope for from a film like this is that the cast is good enough to make the subpar material work, and thankfully they are.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="laggies5" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61395" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies5.jpg" height="425" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/laggies5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">Laggies</em>&nbsp;is a pleasant diversion, and fans of both Knightley and Rockwell will find the money and time spent&nbsp;in their company well worth it, but much like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Garden State</em>, these films suffer from the ever-present specter of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Graduate</em>. That film nailed the quarter-life crisis and gave it an ending worthy of the actual depression faced by the young. Now these films can only hope to uplift and give everyone what they want only after making them learn some harsh lessons about themselves.&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Laggies</em>&nbsp;is an enjoyable film and it has a lot of good in it, but it hasn't got an original bone in its body, nor does it have a single moment of greatness. I miss the days when films aspired to greatness.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 3/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4u8Ctk0QW8/UmG3o67-zPI/AAAAAAAAAbY/YPfgS1XGwAs/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4u8Ctk0QW8/UmG3o67-zPI/AAAAAAAAAbY/YPfgS1XGwAs/s1600/3.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=laggies.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=laggies.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-6997294387985014362014-11-08T17:15:00.003-06:002014-11-08T17:15:53.488-06:00Day 325: Big Hero 6<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="BIG HERO 6" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61335" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big1.jpg" height="268" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"Your hormone and neurotransmitter levels indicate that you are experiencing mood swings, common in adolescence. Diagnosis: puberty."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">When Disney first acquired Marvel back in 2009, the question on everyone's mind was,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">What's going to be the first Marvel property they adapt for an animated film</em>? Little did anyone suspect that the obscure late 90s comic&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Big Hero 6</em>&nbsp;would&nbsp;secure that honor, but in hindsight in makes perfect sense. There are no beloved characters to honor, no major crossover with other Marvel titles to worry about, and a basic storyline so generic, it could be easily adapted to the Disney style. Gone are the ties to Silver Samurai and Viper, no doubt due to their complicated ownership by Fox and involvement in their Marvel films, and in their&nbsp;place is a much more sensible version of the same story of a group&nbsp;of geniuses, and their merchandise-ready sidekick, who band together to save the city they live in and love.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="BIG HERO 6" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61336" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big2.jpg" height="268" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">To retain the Japanese elements of the story while also making it palatable to Westerners who just need American heroes to root for, the film is set in the fictional futuristic city of San Fransokyo. Here, a 13-year old high school graduate named Hiro (Ryan Potter) opts to use his talents to create robots and hustle people on the underground robot fighting circuit rather than do some useful&nbsp;with his talents. When his brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) gets wind of Hiro's money making scam, he steers him instead toward the university he attends, where he and a group of super geniuses spend all day tinkering with the latest high tech devices in an attempt to make life better.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Perhaps the smartest thing about&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Big Hero 6</em>&nbsp;is the way it gets all of the character introductions and motivations out of the way within the first twenty minutes, and then gives the characters some time to breathe, grow, and get to know one another better. Had this been the typical "origin story" narrative we've seen done to death a hundred times by now, the inciting incident of the film--Tadashi's death--would have likely been its climax. Thankfully screenwriters&nbsp;Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, and Jordan Roberts know better than to bog&nbsp;their film down with such contrivances. This is not to say that the film&nbsp;is wholly original or marches to the beat of an entirely new drummer--Laika seems to be the only animation house&nbsp;doing that anymore--but it twists the conventions enough to make them feel fresh and innovative.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="BIG HERO 6" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61337" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big3.jpg" height="268" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">When history writes its post-mortem on the Disney/Marvel era, no doubt the thing that will be most apparent is Disney's inherent ability to take the elements within Marvel's oeuvre and bend them just enough to fit the Disney mold. They've done this with such regularity in their Marvel Cinematic Universe, that it's almost second nature to them at this point, and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Big Hero 6</em>&nbsp;is no different. Knowing that their most successful and beloved films need a character for the kids to latch on to and talk their parents into buying shirts, toys, bed sheets,&nbsp;etc. emblazoned with that character's likeness, Disney wisely focused their attention on&nbsp;the robot Baymax as their breakout character, and he is a delight.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As voiced by<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;30 Rock</em>&nbsp;star Scott Adsit, the robot was designed by Hiro's brother as a medical technician, one whose only function is to heal the sick. This gives the character a unique bent in that he can constantly be the outsider in any situation, looking for ways to aid those he's designed to protect, without ever formally changing his nature. It's a savvy piece of character writing, and both Adsit, the writers, and animators all combined to make a character that's a welcome change of pace and as familiar and cuddly as the characters we've loved our whole lives. It should come as no surprise that there is a direct correlation between how much you like the character of Baymax and how much you like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Big Hero 6</em>.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="BIG HERO 6" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61338" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big4.jpg" height="268" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Big4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The story itself is serviceable, a typical whodunit where an invention designed to help others is turned against its creators to harm humanity, and enough twists to keep at least the younger minds in the audience wondering who's really behind it all. Sadly the thing that the film is least successful at achieving is breaking the mold or doing anything outside of the expected. In fact, it would come as no surprise to discover that this film,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Wreck-it Ralph</em>, and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Guardians of the Galaxy</em>&nbsp;were all written at the same time, because they all feature nearly identical climaxes.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The very young, under six or so, will not get much enjoyment out of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Big Hero 6</em>. In fact, it seems best designed to play to the pre-teen set, who will see in these characters people worth aspiring to. Hiro and his band of inventor friends use their unique talents and abilities to aid one another, and it will hopefully inspire in the young the sense that we should never stop trying to be at our best in everything we do. It's got humor, it's got action, and it moves like a bat out of hell, feeling infinitely shorter than its 108-minute running time would suggest, and frankly what more could you ask for?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="BIG HERO 6" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61339" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/big5.jpg" height="268" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/big5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Those of us in the audience cynical enough to have suffered crushing disappointments personally and professionally will see through all of the hopeless optimism, and study the mechanics of the film, admiring it more for what a technical marvel it is than an emotionally edifying experience. But it's those 7 to 13-year olds in the audience who will see in this film their future, and that's frankly something that more films should aspire to. Disney was incredibly savvy and forward thinking to pick&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Big Hero 6</em>&nbsp;for their first Marvel animated effort, and no doubt this film will be cherished by that pre-teen demographic for years to come. At their best, films and comics should make the viewer or reader aspire to something greater than themselves, and never has that message been more apparent than it is here.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">**Also, as any good Marvel fan should know by this point in time, make sure you stay all the way through the end credits for a terrific little surprise.&nbsp;</strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><span style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">GO Rating: 3.5/5</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ip0lDSTje2g/UkUIXTN_IoI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/aJhu-SPUMDg/s1600/3.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ip0lDSTje2g/UkUIXTN_IoI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/aJhu-SPUMDg/s1600/3.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;"><br /></strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;"><br /></strong></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=disney2014.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=disney2014.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-35988552923947652372014-11-01T13:09:00.000-05:002014-11-01T13:09:12.185-05:00Day 324: Before I Go to Sleep<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="BIGTS" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-60833" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS-691x1024.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS-691x1024.jpg" height="640" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="431" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"No one knows... no one but you."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">In the 13 years since Christopher Nolan's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Memento</em>&nbsp;and David Lynch's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Mulholland Drive</em>&nbsp;reinvented the amnesia thriller, very few movies have used&nbsp;the incredibly rare affliction in a serious way. It seemed as if those two films more or less did just about everything that could be done with that particular plot device, and it was now relegated to action movies such as the&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Bourne</em>&nbsp;films, ridiculous comedies like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">50 First Dates</em>, and Nicholas Sparks weepies like<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;The Vow</em>. Nevertheless, when it was announced that the bestselling book&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Before I Go to Sleep</em>&nbsp;was being adapted into a film with a pretty formidable cast, it seemed as if perhaps the amnesia thriller was back.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's a shame, then, that the film turned out to be soft-focus nonsense better suited to Lifetime than a bill shared by two Oscar-winners. As Christine, a woman suffering from the old "in 24-hours your brain will entirely reset"&nbsp;brand of amnesia, Nicole Kidman is appropriately scared and suspicious of everyone around her, and the audience will do well to follow her lead. Christine must rely on three specific people to piece together what happened to cause this condition. The first is her husband Ben (Colin Firth), who has more or less put his entire life on hold to care for Christine and bring her some sense of normalcy. The second is Dr. Nasch (Mark Strong), a neuropsychologist who enlists Christine's help in preparing a paper on atypical types of amnesia, and who seems to be helping her leave a trail of breadcrumbs that will aid in recovering her memory.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="IMG_7245.CR2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60834" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS1.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS1.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The third person, however, is Christine herself, and she does this by leaving herself various and purposefully enigmatic clues for her to discover when she once again wakes up with no memory of her life. This is sort of where any film like this lives or dies, and the fact that&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Memento</em>&nbsp;did this entire plot device to perfection already&nbsp;makes it&nbsp;disheartening to discover that this film seems content to rehash it yet again, if only as a means to an end. With relatively no supporting cast to speak of, this becomes a three-hander, and thankfully these are all incredibly talented actors who can do quite a bit with very, very little, and so spending ninety minutes in their company is certainly not a terrible proposition.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's other great asset is that aforementioned running time. The film doesn't overstay its welcome, and rips through scenes with a ton of momentum, it just doesn't service the plot as well as a more expansive running time might have. Compare this film, though only for a moment, with this month's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2014/10/day-317-gone-girl.html" target="_blank">Gone Girl</a></em>. Both books run just of 400 pages, yet there's nearly an hour's difference in their film adaptations' running time. When one further considers the amount of subplots and information that the film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Gone Girl</em>&nbsp;jettisoned, I can only imagine how much stuff was cut from this book to get it down to 90 minutes. This ends up leaving the whole endeavor with the pungent stench of a Reader's Digest version of the book.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As any fan of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Sixth Sense</em>&nbsp;will tell you, if a film's got a great twist, it can cure a multitude of sins--a significant multitude in that particular film's case. Therefore, it's doubly disappointing that this film's twist is so preposterous, and ultimately relies on such a Herculean suspension of disbelief, that it falls apart almost as it's happening. The initial twist is actually pretty good, and though it is projected a bit too much, too soon, it's the aftermath and the ramifications of said twist that require downright pole vaulting leaps of logic. You may just go mad exploring all the potential "but what about this?" questions that will arise on the car ride home.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="IMG_0040.CR2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60835" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS2.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Take, for example, last year's vastly superior film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/04/day-199-trance.html" target="_blank">Trance</a></em>. That film similarly suffered a suffocating death by a thousand cuts, but it was perhaps so preposterous that it ultimately ended up working when it really shouldn't have. This film is so dead serious that its equally ludicrous twist ends up feeling as if it walked in from another film altogether. This is a dour film with a tone&nbsp;that's downright funereal, and unravels its final moments with all the charm of a belligerent drunk demanding to know if you "got" what he was just saying. If you're going to force an audience to accept something so utterly ridiculous as to be laughable, it helps if you set a tone that compliments your demands.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Before I Go To Sleep isn't a bad film. It's competently made and well-acted by its trio of stars, though anyone hoping for a twist reprisal of Mark Strong &amp; Colin Firth's love affair from&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</em>&nbsp;will be sorely disappointed. It's basically like an old pair of sweatpants, reliably comfortable, but sorely lacking the image of authority it so desperately wants to project. It's nothing you haven't seen before, and anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the typical amnesiac thriller will constantly be three steps ahead of it. Now, none of this is to say that no filmmaker or writer should ever attempt this line of plotting ever again, it's simply a plea for those filmmakers and storytellers to reinvent the genre. It's been done before, and lord knows it can be done again, it's just probably worth waiting until it can be done properly. Otherwise, what's the point?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="IMG_0124.CR2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60836" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS3.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BIGTS3.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">*As a plea to anyone desiring to go see the film, I must caution you to avoid the film's imdb page, as&nbsp;it contains a major league spoiler right in the cast listing.&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;"><br /></strong><span style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">GO Rating: 2/5</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KQNO2mz3QeI/UmWBmNHzcMI/AAAAAAAAAbo/yHXaq3f9nPM/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KQNO2mz3QeI/UmWBmNHzcMI/AAAAAAAAAbo/yHXaq3f9nPM/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></div><span style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=beforeigotosleep.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=beforeigotosleep.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-76965134574841098902014-10-26T16:49:00.002-05:002014-10-26T16:49:41.987-05:00Day 323: St. Vincent<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST. VINCENT" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60488" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/stv1.jpg" height="441" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/stv1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I'm Catholic, which is the best of all the religions."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">A funny thing happened on the way to respectability for Bill Murray. Though always recognized as the comedic genius he was, his early attempts to be taken seriously in films like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Razor's Edge</em>&nbsp;fell curiously flat. Once he teamed up with Wes Anderson for&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Rushmore</em>, however, Murray finally began to get roles that deftly balanced his humor with his even more tremendous gift for pathos. As we entered the new millennium, Murray's Oscar-nominated turn in&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Lost in Translation</em>&nbsp;marked a major step forward for him, giving him entrée into the world of seriously gifted actors. Then the trouble began. It started to seem like he just really wanted an Oscar, and began taking roles that were tailor made for him, which is a blessing and a curse for an actor. It's a blessing in that the material was more suited to his unique abilities, but a curse in that he just generally seemed to be playing the same guy in every movie.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As we come to this point in 2014, he's already appeared in one maudlin, overwrought ensemble piece (<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2014/02/day-278-monuments-men.html" target="_blank">The Monuments Men</a></em>) after another (<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2014/03/day-284-grand-budapest-hotel.html" target="_blank">The Grand Budapest Hotel</a></em>), and his latest film,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">St. Vincent</em>, is sadly more of the same. In many ways, it's actually worse than those two movies, neither of which were anything to write home about in the first place. Murray's right in his zone, playing a cantankerous misanthrope on the verge of his golden years, but the material he's given to work with never rises above patented mediocrity. There's nary a beat,&nbsp;joke, set piece, or plot device in this film that hasn't been done better elsewhere. In fact, the film shares a ton of DNA with the infinitely better&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Bad Santa</em>, a role that Murray famously turned down, leaving one to wonder if Murray just really wanted his chance at that role.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">I can't honestly think of any other reason he, or any of the other terrific comedic talent in this film, would appear in such calculating, formulaic nonsense as this. The film's extended opening sequence gives us far more information about the irascible&nbsp;title character than we need to understand who he is. The film's brilliant opening, where Murray's Vincent tells an off-color joke in a bar, would have been plenty enough evidence to fill in the blanks on this grouch, but as the opening titles roll, we're treated to an orgy of evidence that he's just not that nice of a guy.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST. VINCENT" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60489" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/stv2.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/stv2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The plot kicks into high gear when newly divorced single mom Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) moves in next door to Vincent with her&nbsp;ten-year old&nbsp;son Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher). In only his second scene, Oliver is reading Shel Silverstein's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Giving Tree</em>&nbsp;with his mom, which they follow with a discussion on nature versus nurture. The precociousness is cranked up to the max immediately with this character, and though Lieberher is a talented young actor, his character is a gross stereotype that's just as offensive in this day and age as the--to borrow a phrase from Nathan Rabin--manic pixie dream girl. Hollywood, I don't need another wise beyond his years grade schooler who suffers torment at the hands of even more stereotypical bullies. I've seen that movie a hundred times or more, try on a new trope for size.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Nevertheless, Oliver's new classmates are less than sympathetic to a sensitive young soul and steal his keys and wallet on his first day, leaving him to ask Vincent to use his phone to call his mother. Since Vincent is hard up for cash, and Maggie is in desperate need of a babysitter, the stage is now set for an unlikely mentor/mentee relationship in which the two will use the qualities the other lacks to bolster one another's confidence and life. Vincent teaches Oliver to stick up for himself, and Oliver proves an ace at picking winning horses at the racetrack, and so they bond to the dulcet tones of Jeff Tweedy in a montage you've already seen, quite literally, a dozen times before.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film wouldn't feel so offensive were it able to provide the audience with something, anything, they haven't already seen before. Vincent's insurmountable&nbsp;debt to a "don't make him have to get rough"&nbsp;bookie (Terrence Howard), coupled with his expensive dalliances with a pregnant stripper with a heart of gold (Naomi Watts), as well as the ever increasing bills he's behind on to keep a loved one in an assisted living facility, put him at such a disadvantage as a character that the film only bothers to wrap up one of those plot threads. Cast all of that aside for a moment and take a look at the subplot in which Oliver's kindly teacher (Chris O'Dowd) gives his class an assignment to find a person in their lives who embodies the qualities of a saint, and you're starting to get a sense of just how conventional this film truly is.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST. VINCENT" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60490" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/stv3.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/stv3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">You're likely beginning to wonder&nbsp;if there's anything at all that's good about the film. Murray is always a joy to watch, particularly when let loose in a film, but this stock character does him no favors. It was nice to see Melissa McCarthy play a normal person that didn't have to suffer through an endless series of "fatty make a funny" jokes. Watts and O'Dowd also bring plenty of life to their roles, and Lieberher is better than the average child actor. Beyond that, I can't really think of any reason to recommend the film.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">In his first time out of the gate as a feature writer and director, Theodore Melfi proves that he brings nothing new to conventions that are as old as film itself. I referenced&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Bad Santa</em>&nbsp;earlier, but you could go all the way back to Chaplin's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Kid</em>&nbsp;to see this exact same story told more simply and with less rote dialogue.&nbsp;Audiences deserve better, and I can only hope that they see through this&nbsp;manipulative and seriously unfunny film. &nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 1/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrCgSyT1QmU/UtBWqBcN7aI/AAAAAAAAArk/4zaiCmJAmDA/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qrCgSyT1QmU/UtBWqBcN7aI/AAAAAAAAArk/4zaiCmJAmDA/s1600/1.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=stvincent.htm" href="http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=stvincent.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-15521851002596396452014-10-25T22:48:00.001-05:002014-10-26T08:45:21.557-05:00Day 322: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="birdman1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60440" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman1.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman1.jpg" height="467" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"You've always confused love with admiration."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Art is subjective, and nothing brings that concept into sharper focus than the act of critiquing art. Critics must walk a tightrope between understanding the artists' intent and then judging them on how well they conveyed that intent. It's especially disheartening to see a film in which a major subplot involves a heartless critic having a showdown with an artist, yet right about two-thirds of the way through&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Birdman</em>, that is exactly what happens. I'm frankly a little sick and tired of hearing the argument that critics bring nothing to the table when it comes to art, and simply make up their mind about something before they even lay eyes on it. It's the kind of argument one would expect to crop up in an M. Night Shyamalan film, which incidentally is precisely what happened in<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Lady in the Water</em>, but for a film like<i> Birdman</i>, which passes itself off as high art, it feels grossly out of place.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">Birdman</em>&nbsp;is so consumed by its own meta-ness, it's own never-ending argument about what makes great art, and what an artist must sacrifice in the name of creating that art, that it ends up not really being about much of anything. In the first bit of knowing business surrounding the entire project, the film casts Michael Keaton as Riggan Thomson, an actor best associated with a superhero character he played three decades ago. Thomson is in the midst of mounting an adaptation of Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" on Broadway, but prior to the first preview, the show is in major trouble.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60441" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman2.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It seems as though everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and to top it off, Thomson is haunted by an inner voice belonging to his superhero alter ego who constantly tells him that he's doomed to fail with this endeavor. In and of itself this is an intriguing idea to hang an entire film on, but the film's director Alejandro González Iñárritu has never been one for subtlety and he's got something to say, dammit! The film deftly balances a number of characters that are involved both in the play and in Thomson's life. There's Lesley (Naomi Watts), the self-doubting actress on the verge of a breakdown just as she's about to achieve her lifelong dream of performing on Broadway. There's Lesley's boyfriend Mike (Edward Norton), a highly respected but egomaniacal actor called in to replace another actor who was injured by a falling light during a rehearsal.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Every great character needs a love interest, so we're given&nbsp;a naive young starlet (Andrea Riseborough) who is carrying on an affair with Riggan, and may or may not be pregnant with his child. Riggan's estranged daughter (Emma Stone) is also in the mix, thanks to a job as his personal assistant which only further drives a wedge between her and the man she felt did a terrible job raising her. How about an overworked and overstressed producer (Zach Galifianakis), who is trying to keep his star happy while ensuring that the show actually gets up on its feet in front of a paying audience? Or maybe an ex-wife (Amy Ryan) still enamored with him despite his countless flaws? It all sounds like a mess of characters constantly coming in and out of the film and muddying up the narrative, but that's actually the thing that the film does best, balancing these various characters and their neuroses.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="birdman3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60442" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman3.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman3.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Where the film falters is in its "look at me!" bravado that finds the entire film constructed to seem as if it is one long, unbroken shot. The characters become tools to literally move the story from one scene to the next, and some of these characters--mostly the women--end up being given short shrift. It's a marvel that Iñárritu and his cinematographer Emmanuelle Lubezki (<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/10/day-243-gravity.html" target="_blank">Gravity</a></em>) manage to make it as seamless as it actually is, but once you realize that it's a gimmick and not a necessity to the story, the shine completely comes off. Despite the best efforts of this technique and a bombastic, overwhelming, non-stop percussion score by first time composer Antonio Sanchez, the film just has no drive to it. There's no engine in this film, and that's the real problem at play here.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">My&nbsp;biggest gripe with the film, however, is its insistence on making straw men out of the media and critics in general. A scene near the beginning of the film finds Riggan hosting an impromptu press junket where the topics range from his decision not to make&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Birdman 4</em>, to his&nbsp;rumored&nbsp;use of baby pig semen to keep his youthful appearance, to a completely disposable argument about French philosopher Roland Barthes. It's a nightmare collision of ideas meant to convey the vapidness of the modern media, yet it goes to such great lengths to convey this point that it's almost wholly meaningless in the end.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="birdman4" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60443" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman4.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman4.jpg" height="346" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film's fatal flaw occurs, as I mentioned earlier, about two-thirds of the way through the film when Riggan and an icy theatre critic (Lindsay Duncan) have a showdown in a bar. The critic attacks Riggan for being nothing more than a movie star who thinks he can act, and informs him that she intends to pan his show before she's even seen it. This leads to a very violent argument about criticism, and how critics risk nothing while artists bare their souls and lay their reputations on the line in the name of what they do. Cast aside the fact that&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2012/11/day-165-ratatouille.html" target="_blank">Ratatouille</a></em>&nbsp;did this entire argument much better, and in an infinitely simpler way, and look to Iñárritu's past to see that this screed has been a long time coming.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As he has morphed&nbsp;from the wunderkind director of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Amores Perros</em>&nbsp;into a much-maligned one trick pony, he's allowed bitterness to get the better of him. He's got something to say about art, and he's going to force everyone to listen while casting a critic as the villain in the argument. It's cheap and ridiculous, and lessens the impact of his message. If you're truly wanting to silence film critics, create a piece of art worthy of praising rather than bombarding them with shame over having an informed opinion that they can elucidate using concrete examples of where you failed to make your point. Stop telling me about great art and show me some already. It's getting late in the film to be making platitudes.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60444" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman5.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman5.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Having said that, Ińàrritu's greatest asset is his cast. Keaton truly lives out the message he's forced to deliver in that hamfisted monologue, and taps into his well of resources to give an incredibly well-rounded performance. Keaton is always at his best when playing a caged tiger of a man, just waiting for his chance to break free and tear into the scenery, and he gets the chance to play both of those things here. Watts, Ryan, Riseborough, Galifianakis, and especially Stone all get their moments to shine as well, and all of them deliver very good performances.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's Edward Norton that stealthily and handily walks away with the entire film, however. Playing an even more thinly veiled version of his real-life persona, Norton has one of the toughest jobs of any actor. He has to play an actor with an immense ego, but even more than that, the talent to back that ego up. He's confrontational, he rubs people the wrong way, and he just generally doesn't care what anyone thinks of him--and I'm not talking about Edward Norton here, I'm talking about his character. He knows this character so well, and plays him so adeptly that it's hard to think that he too isn't tapping into some stuff that hits entirely too close to home.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="birdman6" class="aligncenter wp-image-60445 " data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman6-500x345.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/birdman6-500x345.jpg" height="441" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Much like its main character,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Birdman</em>&nbsp;suffers from too much of an identity crisis to be considered a great film. It wants so desperately to be loved because it's spilling its blood for you and offering up great personal sacrifices in the name of art. However, much like Riggan's ex-wife tells him, it confuses love with admiration. It isn't enough for you to admire&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Birdman</em>, you have to love it, otherwise it was all in vain. Art in any form is not an all or nothing endeavor, and it's sad to see a film that has moments of sheer and utter brilliance collapse under its own weight. I would have admired it a whole lot more were it not trying so hard to make me love it.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 2/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5r-kE_brE/UjPonX4qeUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/8EkNZUaL41Y/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5r-kE_brE/UjPonX4qeUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/8EkNZUaL41Y/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=birdman.htm" href="http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=birdman.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-10397475765411476552014-10-22T23:05:00.001-05:002014-10-22T23:05:15.197-05:00Day 321: Whiplash<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Whiplash-5547.cr2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60307" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip01.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip01.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than 'good job.'"</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The key to success for any "Man vs." film is a good antagonist. A good antagonist can cure a multitude of sins, and at their best, can even make an unworthy protagonist worth rooting for simply by virtue of how bad their antagonist truly is. There are a number of factors that determine whether or not an antagonist is successful, but only one is crucial to their success. You have to believe that they truly think they're doing the right thing. There has to be a moment, or series of moments, in which you think to yourself, "I can see their point." You don't have to agree with them or endorse their evilness, but you have to understand that they feel in their heart of hearts that they're doing the right thing.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Whiplash-451.cr2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60308" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip02.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip02.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">There's a moment fairly late in the terrific new film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Whiplash</em>&nbsp;where J.K. Simmons, who plays a ruthless instructor at a prestigious music conservatory, lays out his philosophy of teaching in no uncertain terms. His reasoning is sound, his logic is flawless, and the angry young artist that still lies dormant somewhere in the back of my subconscious thought, "he's exactly right." You would be hard pressed to find a better antagonist in cinema this year than Terence Fletcher, and as played by Simmons, he is one of the most incredibly three-dimensional antagonists of the new millennium.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Loosely based on writer/director Damien Chazell's experience in high school band,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Whiplash</em>&nbsp;tells the story of Andrew (Miles Teller), a first year student at the fictional&nbsp;Shaffer Conservatory in New York City. The film opens on him practicing drums in the music room late at night when Fletcher walks in to observe him. Carrying himself with the ramrod discipline of a military drill sergeant, Fletcher's mere presence is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the students with whom he works, let alone a first year student like Andrew who views him more as legend than man.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Whiplash-4639.cr2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60309" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip03.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip03.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Everywhere Andrew turns for the next few days, Fletcher seems to be there, watching, observing, haunting him. If the film achieves any immediate success, it's in establishing Fletcher's presence as a thing to both fear and desire. Andrew is in possession of some skill, but is clearly not yet ready for the big time. Nevertheless, Fletcher plucks him from his first year jazz ensemble to join his own Studio Ensemble, built by Fletcher from the ground up. A place where only the best of the best can thrive. Thus the stage is set for an epic showdown of Andrew's youthful arrogance and Fletcher's hair-trigger temper, and with both men possessing personalities that resemble powder kegs more than human beings, the real fun is in waiting for the fireworks to begin.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">If&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Whiplash</em>&nbsp;suffers from anything at all, it's far too many visual indulgences by a first time director eager to show off his skills behind the camera. Early in the film, Andrew goes to the movies with his dad (Paul Reiser) and we get rapid fire close-up shots of popcorn being shoveled into a tub, candy being placed on the counter, and a lid being slapped on a drink in a sequence that wouldn't seem out of place in&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Requiem for a Dream</em>. It's an unnecessary flourish designed more to scream "look at what I can do" rather than further the story. The story is being furthered by the girl behind the concession counter, played by Melissa Benoist, as she silently flits with Andrew, foreshadowing&nbsp;a&nbsp;relationship to come,&nbsp;but&nbsp;the director doesn't seem to notice because he's too busy showing off. It's a minor complaint, but it tends to pop up more often than is really needed, particularly during the montage sequences of Andrew practicing until his hands bleed.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Whiplash-1102.cr2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60310" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip04.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip04.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Teller proves that he is a capable actor, but he was gifted with a&nbsp;gem of a&nbsp;role. The bigger issue for Teller as an actor is that he is upstaged, in nearly every moment of the film, by Simmons. Even when Simmons is not on screen, which is easily half of the film, his presence looms so large in the wings as to devour the film whole. This is a towering performance by an actor normally known for his gregarious father figures, yet who never lets you forget he once shined as a white supremacist on HBO's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Oz</em>. It's the role of his career, and he doesn't miss a beat. He is simultaneously disciplined and unhinged, a lethal combination that is only amplified by his major shifts between one extreme and the other.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's almost a shame to call him a "supporting actor" in this film, a phrase you will hear uttered often in the same breath as his performance along with the word "best," simply because the film seems to be supporting him rather than the other way around. He casts a long shadow, and one which never seems to fade, even after you've left the theater. The mere fact that I cannot seem to stop talking about his performance in this film is indication enough in my mind that he steals not just the film, but the very concept of what it means to be a great antagonist.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="Whiplash-2667.cr2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60311" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip05.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/whip05.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film features some amazing music, music which forms the beating heart of this film, performed by musicians working at the top of their craft, but even that major element of the film seems to be in service of Simmons monumental performance. For a film with so many specters looming large over it, from the frequently cited Charlie Parker and Buddy Rich to the legendary halls of New York music like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall which also make their way into many conversations, it still manages to be a one-man show. In fact, despite some great moments like a heavy handed dinner scene where Andrew is forced to contend with his jock cousins, Teller is not unlike Paul Dano in<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;There Will Be Blood</em>. He gives a performance that would be lauded as fantastic were he not appearing alongside someone giving one of the best performances of all time.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">Whiplash</em>&nbsp;is essential viewing for artists and musicians, who will cringe in sympathy with characters being pushed, both from without and within, by a drive to be the best at what they do. More than that, however, it is the chance to spend a little over 100 minutes in the company of some of the greatest music ever written being fawned over and having literal blood spilt in its name. And more than anything else, it's the chance to see one of those once-in-a-lifetime performances by J.K. Simmons.&nbsp;There are few greater joys for cinephiles than to see&nbsp;a journeyman character actor lift a film up and place it on&nbsp;his or her&nbsp;back. Whiplash gives you the chance to see that in action, and I cannot recommend any higher that you grasp that opportunity.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 4/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Li9lzS8d1aM/T5dx1MC80AI/AAAAAAAAAE4/UMq6-hmUHsQ/s1600/GO-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Li9lzS8d1aM/T5dx1MC80AI/AAAAAAAAAE4/UMq6-hmUHsQ/s1600/GO-4.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=whiplash.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=whiplash.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-3216053399231707582014-10-18T20:08:00.002-05:002014-10-18T20:08:25.401-05:00Day 320: The Book of Life<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59898" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL1.jpg" height="270" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"They crushed our dreams... hilarious!"</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Though the new animated film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Book of Life</em>&nbsp;bears the name of co-writer and director Jorge R. Gutierrez, one glance at the design of the film, as well as the mischievous streak running through it, and it's unmistakably a product of its producer, Guillermo del Toro. The second film from animation house Reel FX is a substantial step-up in quality from last year's&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-free-birds/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-free-birds/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">Free Birds</em></a>, and is one of the most gorgeous animated films ever made. Though it suffers from a number of issues, the things it gets right are nailed so expertly that it's easy to forgive the missteps.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59899" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL2.jpg" height="271" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Creating a mythology within the span of a single film is always difficult, so the filmmakers opted for a framing device that involves a group of rowdy school children visiting a museum, and getting a lesson in the Mexican holiday The Day of the Dead from an eager tour guide (Christina Applegate). The tour guide tells the children the tale of three children who grew up together, and a wager between La Muerta (Kate del Castillo) and Xibalba (Ron Perlman), two rulers of the underworld, that would shape the trio's destinies. As children and again as adults, sensitive Manolo (Diego Luna) and macho Joaquin (Channing Tatum) fight for the affections of Maria (Zoë Saldana). The wager involves who will win her hand in marriage, and Xibalba tips the scales in his favor by gifting Joaquin with a special medal that will make him invincible.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Manolo's destiny is to be a bullfighter, and while he is skilled, his reluctance to kill the bulls coupled with his passion for music make him a poor champion of the town. Joaquin on the other hand, is now a decorated soldier, whom the town relies on to beat back the advances of a wicked bandit named Chakal (Dan Navarro). Maria is torn between the two men, but devoted to her town, and reluctantly accepts Joaquin's proposal in a bid to save the town. Manolo doesn't fare as well, ending up on the losing end of a snake bite, and soon finds himself in the Land of the Remembered, once ruled by La Muerte, but now lorded over by Xibalba as a result of their wager. Manolo must now face his greatest fear to return to the land of the living and win back Maria's hand to set things right.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59901" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL3.jpg" height="271" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">While the story is a fairly paint-by-numbers tale of staying true to yourself and persevering in the face of great odds, the flavor of Mexican history and folklore woven throughout make it truly stand out from the crowd. Small&nbsp;one-liners&nbsp;like "Why are Mexicans obsessed with death," perfectly illustrate that not all children's fables have to be sanitized and glossed over for children to enjoy them, making it a more well-rounded affair than one might suspect. In fact, the film shares a ton of DNA with&nbsp;Dreamworks'&nbsp;first&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Shrek</em>&nbsp;film, from its fractured fairy tale sensibilities to its unusual choices in music used in the film. The film features such a wide array of pop tunes, it will make your head spin.&nbsp;Any film with a soundtrack diverse enough to include Radiohead, Mumford &amp; Sons, Biz Markie, Rod Stewart, Elvis, and Edward Sharpe &amp; The Magnetic Zeroes has to be admired.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Where&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Book of Life</em>&nbsp;truly shines, however, is in the animation. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the most gorgeous films I've ever seen. The animation is mind-blowing, and the use of 3D is among the best I've seen in a film. Everything from the dusty, small-town land of the living to the DayGlo Land of the Remembered and the barren and bleak Land of the Forgotten is impeccably rendered, and gives the film a look and feel unlike anything else you've ever seen. The film falls back too easily and too readily on cheap pop culture references, odd stunt casting, and anachronistic humor, giving one the sneaking suspicion that there was either too much meddling from the studio or too little faith in the audience by the filmmakers, but those quibbles melt away as you begin to lose yourself in the whole experience.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59902" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL4.jpg" height="271" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As mentioned above, the stunt casting is a bit distracting at times, particularly in two major roles. As Joaquin, Channing Tatum&nbsp;pulls off the equal parts&nbsp;macho and boneheaded tendencies of the character, but his voice is inescapably white bread. For a film full of wonderfully talented Latino voices, his almost becomes grating at times. It's better than him attempting an accent like he so memorably failed to do in the cold open of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">22 Jump Street</em>, but I can't help but wonder if there wasn't a more qualified voice actor of color out there somewhere. Ice Cube also stands out as an oddity, playing a character called The Candlemaker, who oversees all the activities in all the various worlds of the film, and doesn't come close to modulating his voice to appropriate any level of authority. He turns the character into a joke-spouting clown rather than a benevolent overlord, which is a tad troubling.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">These are minor issues, however, when one considers all the great voice talent found throughout the rest of the film. Luna, Saldana, Perlman, Trejo, Navarro, and pretty much everyone else nail their characters with such aplomb, it makes the film just that much better as a result. Kudos must also be given to Oscar-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla for his rousing score that combines the best of authentic Mexican music with the classic heroic score one would expect to find in a fairy tale for families.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59903" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL5.jpg" height="270" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/BOL5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">The Book of Life</em>&nbsp;is a somewhat uneven film that manages to overcome its faults and deliver a wholly enjoyable film for all ages. Some one hundred-plus years into filmmaking, and more than ten times that length into storytelling in general,&nbsp;it's nigh impossible&nbsp;to make a story so often told seem fresh, innovative, and new.&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Book of Life</em>&nbsp;does just that and more, giving it the comfortable feel of the familiar, mixed with just enough originality to seem radically contemporary. This is a film that will appeal to just about everyone that loves a good story told in a different way, and if you're not craving that by this point in the year, there's probably just no pleasing you.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 4/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Li9lzS8d1aM/T5dx1MC80AI/AAAAAAAAAE4/UMq6-hmUHsQ/s1600/GO-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Li9lzS8d1aM/T5dx1MC80AI/AAAAAAAAAE4/UMq6-hmUHsQ/s1600/GO-4.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=bookoflife14.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=bookoflife14.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Box Office Mojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-31503875483843182122014-10-16T17:20:00.001-05:002014-10-16T17:49:05.754-05:00The Curious Case of Blockbuster Fatigue<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59810" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/xmen111.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/xmen111.jpg" height="427" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">X-Men: Days of Future Past</em>&nbsp;was released on blu-ray this past Tuesday and in the 72 hours that it's been available for me to purchase, I have held it in my hands twice and thought about purchasing it several more times than that. But there's this&nbsp;nagging feeling every time I have the urge to buy it. This feeling that I honestly just don't remember anything about it. I only just saw it three months ago, yet it's already left my brain for the most part, and I just can't bring myself to purchase it, even at an admittedly great price for a 3D blu-ray.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">This whole summer I felt as though most every movie I saw completely left my brain within 24 hours of having seen it. The only exception to that was&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2014/07/day-308-boyhood.html" target="_blank">Boyhood</a></em>, which I'm still ruminating on months later, but now that blockbuster filmmaking has entered the age of shared universes, homogenization, and focus group tested sameness, I can't bring myself to care about any of the big movies I've seen in the past few months. I liked&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Days of Future Past</em>&nbsp;while I was watching it. It was entertaining, well-written, well-acted, and well-made, but it ultimately felt disposable, and that's the problem with this particular age of blockbuster filmmaking. I have a theory as to why that is, if you'll allow me to share it.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59812" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CA217.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CA217.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The problem began in 2008 when Nick Fury showed up after the credits of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Iron Man</em>. The promise of incredible team-ups to come and crossovers and shared universes seemed amazing. It seemed like the kind of thing that geeks like me could only dream of when we were kids. Nine films and six years into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I'm beginning to understand why getting everything we ever dreamed of isn't always a great thing. I've enjoyed all of the Marvel movies, but have I watched any of them more than once? The answer is no (okay, maybe I saw&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2012/05/day-127-avengers.html" target="_blank">Avengers</a></em>&nbsp;twice, but that was only because my oldest daughter really wanted to see it). In fact, the only reason I went to the theater to see&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/11/day-256-thor-dark-world.html" target="_blank">Thor: The Dark World</a></em>&nbsp;was because Clementine wanted to see it. I bought it when it came out on blu-ray, but like every other Marvel movie I own, it's just gathering dust on the shelf.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">I'm reminded of the famous line from&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Jurassic Park</em>, where Jeff Goldblum's chaos theorist lectures Dr. Hammond on the inherent danger of what he's done saying, "your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." I understand the irony in quoting one of the biggest blockbusters of all time in a rush to prove why blockbusters are inherently flawed, but replace the word "scientists" with the word "filmmakers," and you've got a perfect example of what's wrong with movies today. In fact, the quote seems even more prescient when you look at what Malcolm says just before that quote. "You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now&nbsp;you're selling it." It's eerie how many parallels there are between what he was saying and where we are some 21 years later.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="apes21212317" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59811" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/apes21212317.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/apes21212317.jpg" height="334" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Another gigantic film this summer was<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Dawn of the Planet of the Apes</em>, another well-made, well-acted, well-scripted film that I couldn't tell you much about if you put a gun to my head. I remember the apes; some were good, some were bad. I remember the humans; some were good, some were bad. How did it all shake out in the end? I don't honestly remember and I only saw it 10 weeks ago. That's a problem. The rush to get these films into theaters as quickly as possible before the increasingly short-termed memories of global audience members lapse altogether, has ruined big budget filmmaking. The effects look great, but I can literally see great effects anywhere I look. The problem boils down to the studio system that allows this sort of environment to not only thrive, but to become the only way to get films made anymore.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It also comes down to poor writing, and I'm about to pin some blame here. When we write the obituary of this era of homogenization in blockbuster filmmaking, I think the blame will fall squarely at the feet of rampant egomaniacs Bob Orci &amp; Alex Kurtzman. This writing duo has been nothing if not consistent in their hackneyed scripts that feel tailor-made to the sensibilities of studio heads looking to churn out a familiar product with only marginally interchangeable parts. All of their films are the same. Every single one of them follows the exact same formula to the point where I'm not even convinced they do any actual writing anymore. They're a script making factory, not writers, and the fact that they've placed the <i>Star Trek</i> franchise into Orci's hands makes me more fearful for my favorite fictional universe than I've ever been, even when&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Enterprise</em>&nbsp;was the only game in town.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="SS_D13-5271.dng" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59814" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mj2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mj2.jpg" height="426" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The willingness by studios to just reboot a franchise anytime it starts to come apart is another major problem here. The first&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-34-smurfs.html" target="_blank">Smurfs</a></em>&nbsp;movie was a surprise hit, but then the <a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/08/day-226-smurfs-2.html" target="_blank">second one</a> bombed after they announced they were already working on a third one, so their solution was to just reboot it. Talk has swirled of rebooting&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Spider-Man</em>&nbsp;again, despite the fact that the reboot 2 years ago was basically the same exact story that was told in 2002, just with different villains and a different love interest. And don't even get me started on DC and Warner Brothers' attempt to mimic the Marvel formula by cramming a dozen superheroes into one film and then saturating theaters with a non-stop barrage of superhero movies over the next 6 years.&nbsp;It's awful, and someone's got to put a stop to it.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">My excitement for the new&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Star Wars: Rebels</em>&nbsp;cartoon series was instantly diminished halfway through the first episode when I realized that they're linking its universe to the Star Tours ride at the Disney theme parks. Is this what it's come to? Honestly, do we need a Boba Fett film or a Han Solo film? What's next, a&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Willrow_Hood" href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Willrow_Hood" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Willrow Hood</a>&nbsp;film? I know that's an extreme example, but it's not as far a leap today as it was five years ago. I liked the most recent&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/11/day-255-hunger-games-catching-fire.html" target="_blank">Hunger Games</a></em>&nbsp;film quite a lot when I saw it, but the trailers for the new&nbsp;one have done nothing but make&nbsp;me apprehensive about the potential for more bloated filmmaking in an attempt to keep these franchise cash cows going. It's a truly sorry state of affairs, and it's not going away any time soon unfortunately.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59813" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/EOT101.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/EOT101.jpg" height="380" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The best big budget movie I saw this summer was also one of the biggest flops.&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Edge of Tomorrow</em>, despite its terrible title, was fun, thrilling, and memorable. The script was exceptionally well crafted, the direction was top notch, and Tom Cruise turned in his best performance in 15 years. How did the American public greet a film with no ties to another franchise? They ignored it, and in turn missed an opportunity to reward filmmakers doing solid work. It's despicable that the combined box office for&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Edge of Tomorrow</em>,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/07/day-221-pacific-rim.html" target="_blank">Pacific Rim</a></em>, and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;"><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2012/10/day-163-cloud-atlas.html" target="_blank">Cloud Atlas</a></em>, arguably the three best $100 million-plus movies of the last three years, is less than for the fourth&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Transformers</em>&nbsp;movie alone. That's a truly pitiful statement.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Can anything turn this ship around? Yeah, if people stop going to see middling fare because they think it looks cool or they played with the toys as a kid, then maybe we've got a fighting chance. I don't see that happening though, and I fear that this era hasn't even peaked yet. That's the scariest thought of all.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">BoxOfficeMojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-47411949506536840042014-10-10T16:05:00.004-05:002014-10-10T16:05:48.643-05:00Day 319: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="alex1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59414" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex1.jpg" height="337" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I told you this day was cursed."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Adapting a book is always a daunting task for any filmmaker. The task of deciding what to keep and what to jettison can lead to everything from inspired improvements on the text to outrage from fans of the book. Adapting a slim book, or one with little to no filmic qualities, presents an entirely different set of challenges such as what to flesh out and what elements crucial to the book's success are going to be crucial to the film's success. When an adaptation of the beloved children's classic&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day</em>&nbsp;was announced with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Kids Are All Right</em>&nbsp;director Lisa Cholodenko behind the camera, things seemed promising. &nbsp;When Cholodenko left the project early last year and was replaced by&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Cedar Rapids</em>&nbsp;director Miguel Arteta, lots of question marks loomed, namely would his subversive tendencies be stifled by a Disney film?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="alex2" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59415" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex2.jpg" height="400" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The Cooper family leads a life of hopeless optimism, led by the unflagging positivity of patriarch Ben (Steve Carell). Despite being unemployed for several months, Ben never fails to see the bright side, and that attitude carries over to nearly every member of the family from his wife Kelly (Jennifer Garner), oldest son Anthony (Dylan Minnette), only daughter Emily (Kerris Dorsey), and infant child Trevor. In fact, the only member of the clan that fails to see the good in anything is middle child Alexander (Ed Oxenbould). On the eve of his 12th birthday, Alexander discovers that the coolest kid in school is planning to have his birthday party on the same night as Alexander, causing all of his friends&nbsp;to change their plans, and he makes a fool of himself in front of Becky (Sidney Fullmer), the girl he likes.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">When his family fails to be a support system for Alexander, he makes a birthday wish that just once, his family would have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. The next morning, literally everything that can go wrong for the family does go wrong, leaving Alexander to believe that he's cursed his family. Ben is on the verge of blowing a big job interview; Kelly continually screws up her opportunities for a promotion at work; Anthony's girlfriend (Bella Thorne) breaks up with him despite the prom being that night; and Emily has a cold that may prevent her from performing the role of Peter Pan in the school play. Alexander is now forced to help his family see that the bad days will only make them appreciate the good ones even more.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="alex3" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59416" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex3.jpg" height="400" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Clocking in at just a shade over 80 minutes, the best thing about the film is its breakneck pace that makes it actually feel even shorter. The film doesn't stop for a minute, which is both its best asset and biggest weakness. It seems almost deliberately designed to move so quickly to its next beat that you never have a moment to stop and think about how thin its premise actually is. It's not a bad film, and would have been an even more interesting film had it not bore the moniker of a very famous and beloved book, but having assumed the mantle it did, it's more of a curiosity than an unqualified success. There are a bunch of inspired moments, including an hysterically funny cameo by Dick Van Dyke and a bit at the end involving some Australian "cowboys," but it's sadly not as good as the sum of its parts.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The biggest problem with the film by a mile, is the imprint of the Walt Disney Corporation all over it. From Alexander's Darth Vader shirt, to the prominent placement of several songs from&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Peter Pan</em>, to the fact that Dick Van Dyke is even referred to as Bert, it reeks of being a product more than a film. When a film is well-paced and entertaining, things like this shouldn't stand out, but the fact that all the action seems to stop in order to shill for Disney feels really disingenuous. It's also odd to find moments from the book thrown out, such as the disastrous trip to the shoe store, making it feel more inspired by the book than based on it, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just call the film something else. It reminded me of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Lorax</em>, which became so consumed with its own additions that they condensed several pages of the book down to a single montage.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="alex4" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59417" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex4.jpg" height="400" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film features a ton of talented people in front of the camera, which does help to distract from its issues. Carell is as good as he almost always is, never making it feel like he's phoning it in, which he probably was. The Cooper kids are all very good as well, with Ed Oxenbould making for a particularly good protagonist. There are also some strong cameos from Megan Mullally, Donald Glover, Burn Gorman, and of course the aforementioned Van Dyke. With so much capable comedic talent, it's no wonder the film works as well as it does, it's just a real shame that the material didn't rise to the level of the talent involved.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As a director, Arteta has never really been one for visual flair, with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Youth in Revolt</em>&nbsp;being the one exception that proves the rule, but he does admirable work here. Considering he was basically a director for hire having to deal with the demands of an overbearing studio, it's hard to imagine anyone could have turned this into a great film. The screenplay by first time screenwriter Rob Lieber is a mishmash of inspired gags and grating cliches, and it's hard to know if the film's structure came from the screenplay or took shape in the editing room. Either way, it's a decent enough effort by all involved, but nothing that rises above being mildly entertaining.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="alex5" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59418" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex5.jpg" height="400" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/alex5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="600" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">If you have kids in the 8-12 range, this film will succeed wildly with them in much the same way the&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Diary of a Wimpy Kid</em>&nbsp;films did. However, if your nostalgia for the book is bringing you to the theater, you're only going to be disappointed by what you find. I feel like a broken record at this point, but it's hard for a film that's so wholly inoffensive to be anything other than a decent time waster. The real shame is that no one involved seemed to be aiming any higher than that, and when that's your goal, it doesn't take much effort to succeed.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 2.5/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/alexander_and_the_terrible_horrible_no_good_very_bad_day/" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/alexander_and_the_terrible_horrible_no_good_very_bad_day/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">Rotten Tomatoes</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-2759935575895532072014-10-07T19:32:00.000-05:002014-10-08T08:07:44.807-05:00Top 5 Trailers That Were Better Than The Movie, Round 2<img alt="maxresdefault" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-59163" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/maxresdefault-1024x576.jpg" height="360" width="640" /><br /><br />Last March, I did a <a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-5-movie-trailers-that-were-better.html" target="_blank">Top 5 list of trailers that were better than the movie</a>, and the criteria I laid out for that list was simple... <br /><blockquote>These are the kinds of trailers that, when you re-watch them, make you want to immediately see the movie again. Now, there’s lots of great movies with equally great trailers, but it’s a rare phenomenon to have a great trailer, and then the movie turn out to be good, just not as good as the trailer</blockquote>Over the past two years, a lot of trailers have come out that looked phenomenal, but then the films themselves turned out to be disappointing at best and flat out awful at worst. Here is my (not at all) definitive list of the latest round of trailers that were better than the movie. You can click the title of the films to read my review of them.<br /><br /><strong>---</strong><br /><br /><strong>5. <i><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2012/08/day-139-prometheus.html" target="_blank">Prometheus </a></i>(2012)</strong> It was a gross oversight to leave this film off my top five last time, and I'm going to rectify that here and now. Ridley Scott, much like another director we'll visit with again later in this list, knows how to cut an amazing trailer. The fact that he was mirroring the original trailer for <em>Alien</em> with the first trailer for its quasi-prequel only helped pump up nerd boners to epic engorgement. Looking at the trailer again, I have a foolish desire to watch the movie again, but having just re-watched it a few weeks ago, I'm also instantly reminded of how eternally stupid this movie is. Everything from characters abandoning their principles to service the plot to the black goo to the horrendously boneheaded decision to cast Guy Pearce and then bury him in unconvincing old age makeup. It's a nightmare of a movie, but damn this trailer's good. I've also included the original<em> Alien</em> teaser for comparison purposes.<br /><br />&nbsp; <iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/sftuxbvGwiU" width="640"></iframe><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/LjLamj-b0I8" width="640"></iframe><br /><strong><br /></strong> <strong><br /></strong><br /><strong>4.<em> <a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/12/day-266-american-hustle.html" target="_blank">American Hustle</a></em> (2013)</strong><br /><br />What a trailer this is. Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times," wigs aplenty, Christian Bale going balls deep in another character, David O. Russell's trademark camera movements. It's kind of my own fault for getting so pumped about this one, but I couldn't help it, it looked amazing. After my first viewing of the film, I spent a lot of time convincing myself that I liked the film more than I did, but after a second viewing, it's faults came to the forefront and became impossible to overlook. There's still a lot of great stuff in the film, but it's also a huge mess, and would have benefited from another year or so of development. All in all, it's a good movie that features some great performances, but overall it would have been better had it sported the title Tina Fey gave it at the Golden Globes: <em>Explosion at the Wig Factory</em>.<br /><br />&nbsp; <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hk3Bzss8hYI" width="640"></iframe><br /><br /><strong><br /></strong><strong>3. <em><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/12/day-264-wolf-of-wall-street.html" target="_blank">The Wolf of Wall Street</a></em> (2013)</strong><br /><br />Scorsese's back, baby! That's what I kept telling myself every time I saw this trailer in the four or five months leading up to its release. If he can make a Kanye West song bearable, just think what he was going to do with this movie. While the film itself has its positives, the complete dearth of decent human beings among the characters and the utter douchebaggery of Jordan Belfort made the film an almost unbearable slog through two decades of reprehensible behavior. Scorsese managed to acquit himself of most of the criticism, mainly because he's one of the best visual directors in cinema history, but watching this trailer again brings me right back to a time when I thought this was going to be amazing.<br /><br />&nbsp; <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VC7bSzd-eQE" width="640"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><strong>2. <a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2013/06/day-210-man-of-steel.html" target="_blank"><em>Man of Steel</em> </a>(2013)</strong><br /><br />This one's a bit of a cheat, since I hated the movie, but holy hell was I pumped for this movie, and ninety percent of it had to do with this trailer. This trailer made me forget that Zack Snyder was directing it, and that's reason enough to secure it a place on this list. I was rendered speechless by the quiet moments between Clark and his parents juxtaposed with chaos and destruction. It looked like a masterpiece in the making. We all know how the film turned out, so there's no point in going over that well-worn territory, but it's become increasingly apparent that Zack Snyder has about ten minutes of greatness in him per film, and the way he manages to use that footage in his trailers is an art form unto itself. If the trailer for<em> Batman v. Superman</em> looks amazing, it might be time to start writing its obituary then and there.<br /><br />&nbsp; <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KVu3gS7iJu4" width="640"></iframe><br /><strong><br /></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>1. <em><a href="http://elitist-movie.blogspot.com/2014/01/day-269-secret-life-of-walter-mitty.html" target="_blank">The Secret Life of Walter Mitty</a> </em>(2013)</strong><br /><br />This one's a real head-scratcher because this movie wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything near what the trailer led us to believe it was going to be. Much like his work in front of the camera, Ben Stiller has a hard time balancing comedy and drama, and often fails to find that sweet spot where the two can work in harmony. When he's doing straight comedy, like in <em>Tropic Thunder</em>, the result can be sublime, but with <i>The&nbsp;</i><em>Secret Life of Walter Mitty</em>, he had <em>Benjamin Button</em> parodies residing alongside poignant moments, and the movie's a mess. It's a watchable mess, and it works more often than it doesn't, but this trailer promised amazing things. Maybe I'm just blinded by my love of the song "Dirty Paws," but the whole film felt like a huge missed opportunity to do something great.<br /><br />&nbsp; <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kGWO2w0H2V8" width="640"></iframe>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-37117585700755663482014-10-05T09:52:00.001-05:002014-10-05T09:52:27.895-05:00Day 318: Annabelle<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ANNABELLE" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58511" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB1.jpg" height="350" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"Demons can sometimes use objects as a conduit to achieve their desired goal."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">It's not rare for cinematographers to make the leap to the directing chair, and that move has given us some of the best directors of the last forty years. It's not a sure thing, however, because for every Nicolas Roeg and Barry Sonnenfeld,&nbsp;there's Jan DeBont, Andrzej Bartkowiak, and more recently Wally Pfister. It should come as no surprise, then, that Warner Brothers turned the directing reigns for this prequel to&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Conjuring</em>&nbsp;to that film's cinematographer, John R. Leonetti, whose work as a cinematographer has yielded some pretty good films.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As a director, however, he's overseen some total garbage like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Butterfly Effect 2</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Mortal Kombat: Annihilation</em>. Could&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Annabelle</em>&nbsp;be his first step toward proving he's worthy to be considered among the best cameramen-turned-directors, or would it be another crushing disappointment? Read on to find out...</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="DSC_7556.dng" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58644" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB23.jpg" height="487" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB23.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The cold open to last summer's hit film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Conjuring</em>&nbsp;featured a creepy doll known as Annabelle, and her scene&nbsp;served as a fine introduction to the work of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). Because everything needs a backstory now, we get to see Annabelle's evil origins, but first we are treated to literally the exact same scene that opened&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Conjuring</em>. From there, the film goes back a year to 1970, and&nbsp;an idyllic suburban California town, rife with some creepy shenanigans. John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis) are expecting their first child, and John presents Mia with a doll she been searching for her entire life. She adds it to her collection, and a home invasion that night finds the doll in the hands of a murderous couple, and when police arrive to dispatch with the criminals, the female invader kills herself while holding the doll.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Mia is ordered to stay bedridden for the duration of her pregnancy after suffering a stab wound during the home invasion, but all manner of mysterious things, including a fire, begin happening in their house. After the birth of their baby, they move to an apartment, but the troubles follow them there as well. A trip to a local bookstore owned by Evelyn (Alfre Woodard) leads Mia to believe that the doll may be the cause of these troubles, and is after the soul of their new baby. The couple turn to their priest (Tony Amendola) for counseling, and after he is attacked by the doll (or a force associate with the doll), he tells the couple that the doll intends to take a soul that very night.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="DSC_1060.dng" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58514" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB3.jpg" height="432" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">First and foremost, I have to give the film kudos for not being afraid to wholesale rip-off concepts that have been done much better in films like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Rosemary's Baby</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Exorcist</em>. It's unfortunate, however, that this film is lacking the strong character development from those films, leaving it to feel like a shrill imitation rather than a loving homage. As much as the film is clearly aspiring to those two films I just mentioned, it ends up coming off like a classier, glossier, more upscale version of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Child's Play</em>, and as easy as that comparison seems to someone who hasn't even seen the film, the number of parallels between the two is even more glaring once you've seen it. The film is of two minds from minute one, seeking to appeal to the film geeks in the audience by naming the main characters Mia and John -- the first names of the two actors who headlined&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Rosemary's Baby&nbsp;</em>-- but it ends up being so film illiterate that no one who clues into such a reference will find the film satisfying.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">On the other hand, any film that uses popcorn as a plot device knows exactly where its bread is buttered. The overarching problem with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Annabelle</em>&nbsp;is that it tries to come off as&nbsp;self-aware, when in actuality it feels workshopped to death in such a way that all&nbsp;of these moments feel like contrivances in retrospect. The film ultimately ends up feeling like a machine manufactured in a lab to dole out cliches without ever understanding the inherent pleasures behind such cliches. [<strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">Minor spoiler alert</strong>] Take for example a noble sacrifice executed by a supporting character near the end of the film. It intends to be an homage to Father Karras' noble sacrifice at the end of&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Exorcist</em>, but because this character is not given the development that Karras was, it comes off as a cheap attempt to copy that film, rather than an honest to goodness tribute. We shed tears for Father Karras because we know his inner life, and his decision is the culmination of an entire film's worth of character development. Here, however, we roll our eyes because we recognize instantly what they were going for, and how poorly they failed to execute the conceit.&nbsp;[/<strong style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit;">Minor spoiler alert</strong>]</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="AB4" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58515" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB4.jpg" height="437" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Bearing all of this in mind, it's not easy to fault the performers as they do the best they can with the material they were given. The script's contempt for the characters is a bit alarming, using them as nothing more than a jump-scare delivery system; Mia hears a noise, goes to investigate, gets dragged off by unseen forces, etc. etc. etc. It is a shame to see an Oscar-nominated actress like Alfre Woodard playing a one-note character, and I can't help but hope that she saw something in the character as written&nbsp;that just didn't end up in the film. I will point out, however, that Tony Amendola as the priest has a hell of a career ahead of him in taking on roles that F. Murray Abraham turns down.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Much like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Conjuring</em>, the film feels appropriately spooky, and the cinematography by James Kniest is very good, though I can't help but wonder how much was his doing and how much was Leonetti's. The score by Joseph Bishara, who also scored&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Conjuring</em>&nbsp;and both&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Insidious</em>&nbsp;films, is also good, if a bit reliant on the old startling strings to accompany startling images trick. I'm almost happy to see a film that relies on good old fashioned suspense-building rather than an endless stream of gore masquerading as horror, but it's disheartening to see it done in service of a story that's just frankly garbage.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ANNABELLE" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58516" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB5.jpg" height="355" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/AB5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As a director, Leonetti clearly has learned from the much better directors he's worked with since his last directorial effort eight years ago. What he, and Hollywood in general, need to do, however, is spend more time developing a story worth telling. In the rush to get this film into theaters as quickly as possible, in an attempt to cash in on whatever notoriety they have, makes all of the hard work by the crew feel like it was done in vain. There's a good film somewhere in this director and crew, and especially in that creepy doll, but this just isn't it.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating 2/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5r-kE_brE/UjPonX4qeUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/8EkNZUaL41Y/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wj5r-kE_brE/UjPonX4qeUI/AAAAAAAAAX0/8EkNZUaL41Y/s1600/2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=newlinehorror.htm" href="http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=newlinehorror.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">BoxOfficeMojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-11388504578907278612014-10-02T23:54:00.000-05:002014-10-02T23:54:32.005-05:00Day 317: Gone Girl<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58021" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg1.jpg" height="423" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I thought writers hated clichés."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">With his third film,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Fight Club</em>, David Fincher proved to be a master director of book adaptations, a skill he's now honed on four subsequent adaptations. In fact, fans of the director would have to agree that his only misstep since 1999 was 2002's&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Panic Room</em>, a film which he basically made as a director for hire.&nbsp;For&nbsp;his sixth book adaptation, Fincher decided to tackle another recent bestseller.&nbsp;What makes&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Gone Girl</em>&nbsp;so intriguing is not&nbsp;just&nbsp;the fact that he's working for the first time from a script penned by the book's author, but that he's adapting a work written by a woman, Gillian Flynn. Would this director, known for his hyper-masculine sensibilities, be able to bring to life a book so beloved by women everywhere? Read on to find out... &nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58022" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg2.jpg" height="425" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) seem to have drifted apart in irreparable ways. Rather than spend time with his wife prior to his shift at the bar they co-own, Nick spends some time alone, leaving Amy in the house by herself, the same way she spends most every day. A call from a neighbor prompts Nick to return home, only to find signs of a struggle and no sign of Amy. Two local detectives (Kim Dickens &amp; Patrick Fugit) question Nick about the events leading up to Amy's disappearance, and Nick is soon in over his head with falsifications and half-truths, making him the prime suspect.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Nick's only confidant is his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon), who believes Nick is innocent, but also knows that he's not being forthcoming with her. The events of the present are juxtaposed with Amy's diary entries painting a picture of marital bliss that slowly devolves into deception and fear of the man she loves so dear. As Nick tries in vain to prove his innocence, digging up any potential leads he can, including an old boyfriend (Neil Patrick Harris) whose relationship with&nbsp;Amy seems equally mysterious. With nowhere left to turn,&nbsp;Nick is forced to participate in&nbsp;Amy's annual tradition of sending Nick on a treasure hunt of their past year together, hoping it will&nbsp;reveal the clues he so desperately seeks, and&nbsp;eventually&nbsp;clear his name.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58023" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg3.jpg" height="425" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Whether you're going into the film having read the book or not, my sneaking suspicion is that most audiences will abhor this film. It holds a mirror up to the modern marriage in such a way that will disturb and linger with viewers long after it is over. Having read the book, I can appreciate the streamlining that Flynn was able to do to her story, and most especially for the humor that manages to seep into every crack of this pitch black narrative. It is incredibly well realized and pulls no punches, making for one of the more unsettling movie going experiences in some time, though I have no doubt that those who liked the book will also like the movie. It's intense when it needs to be, light when you don't think it could be, and overall a scathing indictment of the sacrifices people make to remain in a committed relationship.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">While his touch remains surprisingly light as a director, the little moments that Fincher manages to weave into the film make it unmistakably&nbsp;of a part with&nbsp;his unique mind. The second time we see Nick in the film, he's carrying the board game Mastermind under his arm, subconsciously tipping the audience in a particular direction. That he follows this with stunning revelations about Nick's overall incompetence is only further proof of the fun he's having leading you in one direction, only to strand you a moment later. One might even go so far as to mistake&nbsp;such&nbsp;trickery as contempt for the audience, but the sadistic glee with which Fincher misdirects and misleads&nbsp;will be&nbsp;immense fun for those who have read the book.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">If you haven't read the book, I would only caution you not to make your mind up too early. The way that the film's first act plays out is full of all manner of chicanery, and having your heart set on something is only going to lead to heartbreak in this story. The film's second act is its strongest, with revelations coming fast and furious, and the film's pace taking on the momentum of a&nbsp;runaway&nbsp;train. The third act, however, is where the film becomes transcendent. It's going to aggravate viewers and even some fans of the book, who may not like the additions Flynn and Fincher made, but it really drives home the film's themes in all the best ways. The book's ending is intact, for those who didn't care for it, but my suspicion is that those who felt that way weren't ready to embrace such naked truths about the very nature of relationships. Never before has a bleak ending been hammered home with such joy. &nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58024" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg4.jpg" height="423" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As for the performances, they are rock solid, top to bottom. This is the role that Ben Affleck was born to play; The conniving, good-looking, unappreciative dimwit who tries so hard to be a nice guy that he ends up alienating his most staunch allies. As one character remarks, it's in his marrow, and the ease with which he plays Nick gives one pause at both how naturally it comes and how well he nails it. Rosamund Pike truly lives up to the "amazing" qualifier her character's been saddled with her entire life. Simply labeling this a great performance would downgrade how absolutely perfect she is in every regard, making every facial expression, tic, gesture, and mannerism land with unrivaled authority. This is truly a "star is born" moment.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The supporting cast is equally fantastic, with Carrie Coon and Kim Dickens adding the best support by far. The biggest surprise, however, is how good Tyler Perry is in the role of Nick's high-priced attorney. As someone who's never thought much of Perry, as an actor or as a personality, I am happy to eat crow and say that he seems born to be in front of the camera. It's a thoughtful performance, every bit as calculated and disciplined as the rest of his oeuvre seems to be the opposite. It almost seems to go without saying that the work of cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, editor Kirk Baxter, and composers Trent Reznor &amp; Atticus Ross is top notch, but the way Fincher's creative team works together makes the film that much more incredibly to look at and listen to. &nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58025" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg5.jpg" height="476" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/gg5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Flynn and Fincher are a match made in heaven, if only because Flynn knows so well how to craft a story that plays into all of Fincher's strengths, and vice versa. While it's certainly the least "Fincher-esque" movie that he's made since&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Panic Room</em>, it's equally satisfying to see him work so well in untested waters. The film is going to be a tough sell, and those who didn't like the book will find all of their same issues with it intact here. Those willing to hear and see harsh truths about themselves played out masterfully on the big screen, however, are going to find a film that both disturbs and entertains in equal measure, and often within the same breath.<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Gone Girl</em>&nbsp;is one of the most wholly satisfying movies made in the last year, and I am literally giddy with anticipation to talk about it with others, particularly those who don't like it; And I suspect they will be legion.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 4.5/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u7wwWdnFGnQ/Uk8X4_GjxeI/AAAAAAAAAa4/D7Vryff-UzQ/s1600/4.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u7wwWdnFGnQ/Uk8X4_GjxeI/AAAAAAAAAa4/D7Vryff-UzQ/s1600/4.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=gonegirl.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&amp;id=gonegirl.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">BoxOfficeMojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-75281073173164630322014-09-27T14:42:00.001-05:002014-09-29T06:06:20.683-05:00Day 316: The Boxtrolls<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="bt1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58014" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt1.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt1.jpg" height="360" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"I regret so much."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Portland-based stop-motion animation house LAIKA truly has no equal in the animation world at the moment. They're not unlike Pixar was 20 years ago, taking big risks and praying they'd reap the rewards that followed from such daring choices. Sadly their films have not been the box office behemoths that virtually every other animation house in the world has produced. Rather than bend their sensibilities to more commercial prospects, however, they continue to create daring, challenging, beautifully crafted works of art that the general public will eventually catch up to in the long run.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">And so it is with their latest effort,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Boxtrolls</em>, based on Alan Snow's book&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Here Be Monsters</em>, and it is their boldest work to date. With a grotesque beauty, the film tells a wholly original tale of family &nbsp;and personal growth that finds time to pay homage to everything from&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Wizard of Oz</em>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Monty Python's</em>&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Meaning of Life</em>.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="0700.0740.fin.001.L.0127.tiff" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58015" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt2.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt2.jpg" height="360" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Set in the fictional burg of Cheesebridge, which seems to reside in Victorian-era England,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Boxtrolls</em>&nbsp;tells&nbsp;the story of Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright), a young boy snatched from his home as an infant by a group of mischievous trolls that reside in boxes. The town is lorded over by a white hat wearing aristocracy, led by the oblivious to everything but cheese Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris, sounding more like his father than ever). When an ambitious exterminator named Archibald Snatcher (a delightful Ben Kingsley) discovers that the boy has been taken, he makes a deal with&nbsp;Portley-Rind&nbsp;wherein he'll be invited to become a member of the aristocracy if he tracks down and eliminates all of the boxtrolls.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The boxtrolls are not what they seem to be, at least not in the narrative being fed to the town by Snatcher. As Eggs grows, he soon discovers the truth behind how he came to live with them, and Snatcher's plan to use these resourceful trolls for his own means. Now in his teens, Eggs&nbsp;teams up with Portley-Rind's daughter Winnie (Elle Fanning) to expose Snatcher and get his family back, but will Winnie's clueless father and the bloodthirsty townsfolk believe their version of events?</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="bt3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58016" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt3.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt3.jpg" height="360" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As mentioned earlier,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Boxtrolls</em>&nbsp;is a gloriously grotesque film which revels in dirt, grime, and all manner of disgusting behavior. It should come as no surprise that a film set in the Victorian era refuses to shy away from the class struggles and squalid living conditions of the day, but to find such notions in a family film is every bit as revolutionary as it sounds. That the film is not sanitized for a generation of children raised on squeaky clean story lines, settings, and characters is bold enough in its own right, but to seamlessly weave social commentary into the film is nothing short of a miracle in this day and age. What LAIKA does that no other studio does is create a world in which danger to children is a very real thing, and they are forced to combat the ignorance of the adults that populate their stories.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">This is what Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, and other titans of 20th century children's literature understood so implicitly&nbsp;about children. They want stories they can relate to, presented as fantasies they can cherish. I love Disney, Pixar, Ghibli, and about half of what Dreamworks does, but they give children what they want rather than what they need far too often (though Ghibli does have a better batting average than the others mentioned). Children lose themselves in worlds where they can relate the characters, but where the situations are only a half-step removed from things they may be dealing with in their own lives, like sense of self and standing up for what you believe in, and LAIKA does this with such consistency it's astonishing.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="bt4" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58017" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt4.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt4.jpg" height="360" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">The Boxtrolls</em>&nbsp;looks marvelous, and is a triumph of the form in every sense of the word. It's messy, fantastical, funny, and all of the things that a child would likely come up with on their own. From a design standpoint, it's a brilliantly realized world that feels not just lived in, but rather neglected and disrespected. It feels at times like watching children play with their toys in a messy room, and never fails to be simultaneously whimsical and authentic. The boxtrolls themselves are also a complete success from design to character, flitting about tinkering with things, making strange music, and truly working together for a greater good. The sight gags, including a recurring bit with a one-man band, are also fantastic, with enough humor aimed squarely at the adults in the audience to make it satisfying to every member of the family.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The voice work is also exceptional, with Ben Kingsley turning in one of his best performances in a career full of great ones. He delights in playing a villain, and when coupled with the garish design of his character, makes for one of the best antagonists in a long time. His trio of henchmen voiced by Richard Ayoade, Nick Frost, and Tracy Morgan are also hilarious, as is Simon Pegg in the role of a fairly pivotal character.&nbsp;It's a sharp script, with plenty of satire and appropriately low-brow humor that never feels pandering or lazy.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="1400.0900.fin.001._L.0184_CC.tiff" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58018" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt5.jpg" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/bt5.jpg" height="360" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><em style="color: inherit;">The Boxtrolls</em>&nbsp;is perfect family entertainment. It will appeal to moms and dads, but most importantly, it will connect with kids in a way that so much of the disposable nonsense marketed to them could never hope to. Three films into their history, I feel comfortable calling LAIKA the most imaginative animation studio in existence, and I simply cannot wait to see what they do next. These films have an awful lot of heart, and they wear them brazenly on their sleeves. It's rare in this day and age that an animated film can succeed so completely, due to the large number of factors at play in their creation, but&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Boxtrolls</em>&nbsp;is another triumph, and everyone--even those without children--should see it as soon as they are able.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 4/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Li9lzS8d1aM/T5dx1MC80AI/AAAAAAAAAE4/UMq6-hmUHsQ/s1600/GO-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Li9lzS8d1aM/T5dx1MC80AI/AAAAAAAAAE4/UMq6-hmUHsQ/s1600/GO-4.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=laika2014.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=laika2014.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">BoxOfficeMojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-46132671170349222492014-09-20T21:09:00.000-05:002014-09-20T21:09:29.022-05:00Day 315: This is Where I Leave You<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57732" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/wily1.jpg" height="360" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/wily1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"It's hard to see people from your past when your present is so cataclysmically screwed up."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Dysfunction is in. It's hip to be dysfunctional again, and it seems as if every film that deals with family these days more or less traffics in dysfunction. It's not interesting to deal with perfection as far as character dynamics go within a family, but lately it's been a pissing match to see who can present the most messed up family of them all, as if John Waters'&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Pink Flamingos</em>&nbsp;has come to startling life. And so it is with the new film&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">This is Where I Leave You</em>, which features a cast of ace comedic talent and a script from Jonathan Tropper based on his book. The biggest question mark of all was director Shawn Levy, whose stock in trade is middle of the road fare like&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Night at the Museum</em>&nbsp;and<em style="color: inherit;">&nbsp;Date Night</em>. Could he rise to the heights presented to him by another stellar ensemble, or would he fail them as he's failed so many great casts in the past? Read on to find out...</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="????????????" class="size-full wp-image-57733 aligncenter" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY2.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Judd Altman (Jason Bateman) is having a terrible run of bad luck. When the film opens, he discovers that his wife (Abigail Spencer) has been sleeping with his misogynistic radio show boss (Dax Shepard) for over a year, and to top it all off his father dies. When the Altman clan assembles for his funeral, their mother (Jane Fonda) tells them that their atheist father's dying wish was for his family to sit shiva for him, a Jewish tradition where a family mourns together for a full week. Judd's sister Wendy (Tina Fey) is the only one who knows about Judd's marital strife, but is dealing with her own distant husband (Aaron Lazar) and two small children, one of whom is taking potty training to new extremes. The oldest brother Paul (Corey Stoll) is knee deep in trying to get his wife (Kathryn Hahn) pregnant, and the youngest brother Phillip (Adam Driver) has just sprung his newest, and much older girlfriend (Connie Britton) on the family.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">As the week wears on, long simmering tensions between them all are brought to the surface. Judd rekindles his relationship with an old flame (Rose Byrne) just as his wife reappears to share some shocking news with him, and the family begins to suspect that their mother is not being upfront with them about certain developments that have occurred in the last years of their father's life. But through it all, blood is thicker than water, lessons will be learned, tears will be shed, laughs will be had, etc. etc. etc.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU" class="size-full wp-image-57734 aligncenter" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY3.jpg" height="380" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The most immediate issue with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">This is Where I Leave You</em>&nbsp;is that it seems perfectly content to not break any new ground. There's not a beat in the entire film that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Trying to condense a sprawling, multi-character book into a 103 minute film is always a challenge, and the film feels like it's trying to keep as much in as possible, at the expense of not really developing more than a handful of the characters. It becomes tedious at times, particularly in the bloated third act, and considering how far ahead every development is projected, it feels like a long slog toward a foregone conclusion. By unleashing a torrent of plot twists, seemingly one for every character in the film, it begins to feel like the writer and director are doing everything they can to maintain the audience's interest.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The real sin is that they didn't have to do any of that. With a cast this amazing, they could have simply let them loose and allow them to make up for the shortcomings behind the camera. Instead, one begins to feel for a cast given very little to work with, doing their best to not let the flop sweat show. The film does have some terrific moments, and watching comedic geniuses like Bateman and Fey go toe to toe with stellar actors like Fonda and Stoll is worth the price of admission alone, but one can't help but wish that they were given just a little bit more to work with.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU" class="size-full wp-image-57735 aligncenter" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY4.jpg" height="360" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The actors are more or less done in by their underdeveloped characters, and the lack of closure with virtually every character except Bateman's weakens the whole enterprise. Bateman is terrific, as to be expected, and his chemistry with Fey is the real highlight of the movie. Stoll does the best he can with the weakest of the main characters, and Byrne is sadly saddled with a more mature version of the ubiquitous manic pixie dream girl. Driver is perhaps the biggest revelation among the cast, showing that he works incredibly well in ensembles pieces, and always managing to land truthful moments with both humor and gravity. The rest of the cast is fantastic as well, adding up to one of the best ensembles in recent memory.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The main fault of the film is the direction. Levy is just not a capable director, and his insistence on constantly hammering in visual metaphors where they're not needed undermines the brilliant work of his cast. That's his m.o. however, casting very capable actors and then leaving them to fend themselves while he stages some hackneyed, first year film student set-up underscored with&nbsp;alt rock. It's a real shame because a better director would have really brought this film to life, and could have probably avoided some of the more rote aspects of the screenplay.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="?????????????????" class="size-full wp-image-57736 aligncenter" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY5.jpg" height="426" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/WILY5.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Overall,&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">This is Where I Leave You</em>&nbsp;rings of truth while still feeling wholly dishonest. It's incredibly well acted, and the script has some moments of verbal pizzazz, but it feels like a ground rule double when it could have been a home run with just a little more effort. It will land with a variety of audience members, most of whom can relate to the dysfunction on display, but it's simultaneously weighed down by contrivance and well-worn tropes. It's basically a funnier version of&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-august-osage-county/" href="http://www.populationgo.com/film-review-august-osage-county/" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank"><em style="color: inherit;">August: Osage County</em></a>, and if that sounds appealing to you, then by all means, enjoy. The rest of us will just sit here quietly, hoping that someday soon, dysfunction will be presented not for dysfunction's sake, but because it's grounded in a universal truth about all of us.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 3/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4u8Ctk0QW8/UmG3o67-zPI/AAAAAAAAAbY/YPfgS1XGwAs/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l4u8Ctk0QW8/UmG3o67-zPI/AAAAAAAAAbY/YPfgS1XGwAs/s1600/3.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=thisiswhereileaveyou.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=thisiswhereileaveyou.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">BoxOfficeMojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-8319351979059194392014-09-14T19:16:00.001-05:002014-09-14T19:16:30.750-05:00Day 314: The Skeleton Twins<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57398" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST1.jpg" height="272" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST1.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">"Well at least she's sending us the light."</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Arguably the two best, most versatile talents to come out of the post-Will Ferrell SNL era are Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. They are perhaps the best one-two combination since Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, and their rapport with one another is almost preternatural. That made the prospect of seeing these two dive into heady subject matter in their first starring vehicle together since leaving the show all the more appealing.&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Skeleton Twins</em>&nbsp;is an interesting little film that will certainly afford an audience who has only seen these two goof around with one another to see them in a different light.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST3" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57400" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST3.jpg" height="264" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST3.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">&nbsp;Maggie (Wiig) and Milo (Hader) are twins that have not seen each other in a decade. When the film opens, Maggie is preparing to off herself by consuming a large quantity of pills, but her suicide attempt is delayed when she receives word that Milo has just been hospitalized for also attempting to take his own life. Maggie invites Milo to come and stay with her in their old hometown of Nyack, NY, where Maggie now lives with her gregarious husband Lance (Luke Wilson). Milo reconnects with an old flame (Ty Burrell), though their past together remains shrouded in mystery for most of the film, and&nbsp;Milo&nbsp;also&nbsp;manages&nbsp;to get Maggie to open up to him about her various extramarital dalliances. But the secrets Milo continues to keep from Maggie,&nbsp;coupled with&nbsp;the meddling he begins doing in her life with Lance may doom their renewed relationship.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Perhaps the most successful thing about&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">The Skeleton Twins</em>&nbsp;is the fact that it never shies away from being morose. It deftly balances comedy and tragedy, but always errs on the side of the latter, and the core quartet of actors is perfectly up to the challenge. Anyone doubting Bill Hader's acting chops will be pleased to see that he is as&nbsp;capable at&nbsp;drama as he is at comedy. He plays perhaps the most honest and realistic homosexual character in a film in a very long time, and manages to wring ethos out of every line delivery and mannerism. It is a gift of a role for this seriously talented actor, and one that will hopefully land him more thought provoking work in the future.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57399" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST2.jpg" height="263" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST2.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Wiig also does very good work, though her character is harder to empathize with, making it&nbsp;the more challenging role simply by virtue of that fact. Their scenes together are the best in the film, and whenever Wiig is onscreen without Hader, she seems to struggle to find an identity. This is basically the long-winded way of saying that she's been better in other things. Wilson is terrific, and proves how under-utilized he is these days, and Burrell puts on a master class of playing a manipulative and selfish man that has yet to learn any lessons from his mistakes.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">Where the film flounders is in the heavy-handed symbolism laded on with reckless abandon by sophomore director Craig Johnson. His use of water as a constant symbol of isolation and despair is&nbsp;played out even&nbsp;before the opening title, and it only gets worse from there. The character work being done by these four terrific actors is constantly undermined by a director trying to showcase his visual flair, and it frankly bogs the entire film down.&nbsp;He is certainly&nbsp;done no favors by the cliche heavy script he penned with&nbsp;<em style="color: inherit;">Black Swan</em>&nbsp;scribe Mark Heyman, but it feels as if the finished script was a leaden rewrite of another, better, tighter script. It also bears several of the worst hallmarks of its producing team, Mark and Jay Duplass, whose mumblecore movies traffic in maudlin sentiment. &nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><img alt="ST4" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57401" data-mce-src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST4.jpg" height="265" src="http://www.populationgo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ST4.jpg" style="color: inherit; display: block; font-style: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">The film thankfully doesn't overstay its welcome, clocking in just north of ninety minutes, but it ultimately feels like a great character study weighed down by a director looking to put together a sizzle reel of flashy directorial tricks. It's not a bad movie, but it certainly has the air of having been hijacked by a director looking to show off. If anything, it's a major league coming out party for Bill Hader, who does the best work of his still young career. It's not a film for everyone, but it's filled with enough small moments that are likely to land for audience members from all walks of life. It's just disappointing to see such great work being undercut by a director and producers who tried to bend it to their will. There's a great movie buried in here somewhere.&nbsp;If only&nbsp;they had hired a director who could've mined that greatness rather than obscuring it.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">GO Rating: 2.5/5</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nkq7pO_SYVs/T3vL5OwxMDI/AAAAAAAAAD8/fzuU8StbOg4/s1600/GO-2.5.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px;">[Photos via&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=skeletontwins.htm" href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=media&amp;id=skeletontwins.htm" style="font-style: inherit;" target="_blank">BoxOfficeMojo</a>]</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6395386597298338483.post-32504942358602613952014-09-13T08:30:00.000-05:002014-09-13T08:30:51.864-05:00Day 313: The Drop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PUXJQ2eEPeA/VBQyjAInqfI/AAAAAAAABI8/hPQQxIUALeo/s1600/drop1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PUXJQ2eEPeA/VBQyjAInqfI/AAAAAAAABI8/hPQQxIUALeo/s1600/drop1.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"We're dead already... we're just walkin' around."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Very few writers traffic in low level crime and the effect it has on a neighborhood quite like Dennis Lehane. Whether it's in his most well known works like <i>Mystic River</i>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<i>Gone Baby Gone</i>, or in his short stories, Lehane is one of the best at capturing the never-ending cycle of crime that grabs people when they're young and never lets them go. His latest work to hit the screen, <i>The Drop</i>, is based on a short story titled <i>Animal Rescue</i>, and tells the story of a Brooklyn drop bar, a place criminals use to store large sums of money acquired through various unscrupulous means.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cousin Marv's is one such haunt, named after Marv (James Gandolfini), a former big time hood who is now simply an errand boy for Chechen mobsters. Marv's literal cousin, Bob (Tom Hardy) tends the bar, and also tends to himself, always keeping his eyes and his head down while seemingly never ceasing to watch everything going on around him. On his way home from work one night, Bob discovers a pit bull puppy who was beaten and left to die in a garbage can outside the home of a woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace). Seeing in this puppy a kindred spirit, Bob nurses it back to health with Nadia's help, and the two form a tenuous relationship built on secrecy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6CD60ytIfZs/VBQyi0BNRZI/AAAAAAAABI4/-0JXfGi1p28/s1600/drop2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6CD60ytIfZs/VBQyi0BNRZI/AAAAAAAABI4/-0JXfGi1p28/s1600/drop2.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Back at work, the bar is robbed one night by two masked thugs, and the Chechen (Michael Aronov) whose father runs the bar puts Bob and Marv on notice to recover the five grand stolen from them. It isn't long before worlds begin to collide, and all of the various crimes perpetrated within the opening minutes of the film show their connection to one another. This is the film's greatest strength, tying all of these circumstances together and keeping the audience in the dark as to who has the upper hand and why. It's an interesting concept that never fails to keep the audience wondering what the motivations of various characters are, but it's also unfortunately the kind of film that requires a somewhat longwinded explanation in the third act.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is where the film's strengths suddenly become liabilities, which is unfortunate considering how well the first two acts play out. Hardy never fails to make Bob an interesting character, whose stoic demeanor conceals the fact that he's either a half-wit or an exceedingly dangerous individual, or perhaps some combination of the two. It's another fascinating performance by an actor who relishes the chance to play such a character, and Hardy delivers as always.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9EVGXuRB_5Q/VBQyjHyKDpI/AAAAAAAABJA/--BRcCn3rs8/s1600/drop3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9EVGXuRB_5Q/VBQyjHyKDpI/AAAAAAAABJA/--BRcCn3rs8/s1600/drop3.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If <i>The Drop</i> is not wholly successful as a film, it's certainly not for lack of trying. It's impressive to see such verisimilitude in a film directed by a Belgian, Michaël R. Roskam, and populated with non-American actors playing Brooklynites (Hardy, Rapace, and the excellent Matthias Schoenaerts as the pit bull's former owner). It speaks to the universality of the themes at play, and thematically this is an incredibly successful film. Where it falls short is in the crucial elements of storytelling, from its sluggish pace to the multiple endings required to tie up every possible loose end.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As a swan song for James Gandolfini, it's simultaneously comforting and a bit disappointing. Comforting because it's the kind of role that's right in his wheelhouse, allowing him to wield a sideways glance like a cudgel, but also disappointing because it is so close to the kind of thing he's done better elsewhere. However, to think of this film without a towering presence such as his would likely downgrade it substantially, which speaks volumes about what it is that he brings to the film.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3tK8EwHCZJw/VBQylBF0MGI/AAAAAAAABJY/oPbrODXxKVA/s1600/drop5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3tK8EwHCZJw/VBQylBF0MGI/AAAAAAAABJY/oPbrODXxKVA/s1600/drop5.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>The Drop</i> is a very good film that suffers from some contrivances and poor pacing, and much like <i>Mystic River</i>, would have been a better film had it ended five minutes sooner than it did. As a truthful look at the interconnectedness of various criminal elements, all of whom think they're operating independent of one another, it's endlessly fascinating and incredibly well-crafted. As entertainment, however, it falls short in several areas. Thank goodness Tom Hardy is as good an actor as he is, and the rest of the ensemble is just as accomplished, because they rescue the film from its own shortcomings. Ultimately it's a very good movie that can't help but elude greatness.&nbsp;</div>Elitist Movie Snobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15903495267094812095noreply@blogger.com0